Draw
by Monkey and Cookee
Summary: AU. Kuroko and Mayuzumi own a tattoo shop and Akashi gets dragged there one day by a bored Kuroko. Kise's a puppy, Mayu's questioning his life choices, Akashi's interested and Kuroko's watching the madness happen. Tattoo AU. Eventual MayuAka, KasaKise is mentioned too. -M.
1. Chapter 1

**Monkey: Disclaimer? Disclaimed. Have fun!**

* * *

"Mayuzumicchi!" A cheerful voice called over the bell ringing above the open door. "I haven't seen you in ages!"

The silver haired man behind the counter didn't look up from what he was working on. "You saw me two weeks ago."

"Exactly!" the blond walked in, making his way to his friend. He peered over Mayuzumi's shoulder to look at what he was drawing, "Koi fish?"

Mayuzumi nodded. "I have a client coming in later today that's getting this on their back."

"They're beautiful," Kise commented.

"Thanks."

They sat in silence for a few minutes, but Mayuzumi knew it wouldn't last. He was mentally counting down until—

"Mayuzumicchi," Kise whined, looking around.

Mayuzumi finally glanced up at the pouty blond. "Where's Kasamatsu?"

"He's busy," Kise replied, walking around the counter so he could lean on it without getting in his friend's way. "Where's Kurokocchi?"

"He went out about an hour ago, don't know when he's coming back." By now he had already gone back to his sketch. This had been done since yesterday, but he was redoing it to find all the little spots that lacked perfection. His client hadn't had time to get it done before but wanted to line it all out today, and Mayuzumi never did anything but the best. He was a damn good tattoo artist if he was being honest.

He and Kuroko, another great tattoo artist, ran their shop, ShadowsX, together.

Kise came in all the time. Mayuzumi never knew where he found the time since he was a popular model right now. Kise was one of Kuroko's best friends (though the quiet blue-haired tattoo artist wouldn't openly admit that) and in the three years since their shop opened—unfortunately—Kise became one of Mayuzumi's best friends too. Mayuzumi swears it was an accident.

He and Mayuzumi had matching tattoos, but that was a story for another day.

Kise wasn't allowed to have tattoos, but he had a tiny one he kept a secret with the best makeup artists in the country helping him.

"Mayuzumicchi," Kise whined. Three years ago, he would've glared death at the blond. Mayuzumi secretly thought those days were less stressful than his life now.

"What?"

"I'm bored, and today's my first day off in two weeks!"

The silver-haired man snorted, adding the finishing touches to his koi fish. "You should really talk to Kasamatsu about that."

Kise laid his head down on the cold counter. "I think he's jealous that I did a shoot with Aominecchi the other day."

Mayuzumi tapped the blond to lift his head and look at the sketch. Kise gave a thumbs-up of approval. Mayuzumi put all his things away sans the sketch then patted the counter beside him. "Ok, tell me all your problems." He had learned over the years that a whiny Kise was an annoying one, and it was better to give him attention every once in a while.

Like a puppy, Kise jumped up and made his way back around the counter and sat up on it, scooting over so he was sitting right in front of Mayuzumi. The tattoo artist moved back a bit on his rolling chair to accommodate for having a blond model sitting between his legs.

He hadn't even liked Kise at first—he was too hyper. He didn't even know how he got to be this close and comfortable with this overgrown model puppy.

At least he was trained.

"Aominechhi and I did a shoot together last week," Aomine was a basketball player who sometimes modeled. He and Kise met in the business and with Kise's natural ability to be infuriatingly good at everything he tried, he and Aomine hit it off immediately and played basketball together every once in a while. "And then we went out for drinks." Kise kicked his feet like a kid, careful not to hit Mayuzumi. "I came home late, but I was fine! I was a little drunk, but that's just us having fun. I don't get to hang out with him often."

Mayuzumi put a hand on Kise's knee to shop his kicking. "Well, there's your problem."

"But I love Yukio!" Kasamatsu didn't like Kise calling him "Kasamatsucchi" or "Yukiocchi," at least not in public. "And Aominecchi and I are just friends! And he likes Kagamicchi!" Kise huffed, crossing his arms over his chest. Kagami was another basketball player he met through Aomine. They were on different teams and Kise often played against both.

"Have you told Kasamatsu that?"

"He doesn't like me gossiping about other couples."

"I meant that you love him."

"Every day."

"Do you do it seriously?"

Kise dropped down from the counter and settled himself on Mayuzumi's lap. The silver-haired man stared blankly as Kise wrapped his arms around his neck. Kise, who had a couple inches on Mayuzumi, got in a little closer. Having a gorgeous blond model this close and personal didn't affect Mayuzumi in the slightest.

And this was the team he batted for.

He wondered if it was just him so used to Kise or if he should look into asexuality.

"I love you," Kise whispered by his ear.

"I should tell Kasamatsu that you're cheating on him," came a new voice, startling Kise off Mayuzumi's lap, causing the tattoo artist to laugh at him.

"Ah! Kurokocchi!" Kise happily skipped over to the blue-haired man who stood just behind the counter. Kise hugged Kuroko, even after the tattoo artist tried to dodge him.

No one heard the bell ring when Kuroko came in.

"You're causing a scene in front of a client," Kuroko said, pointing to the redhead behind him.

"Possible client," the redhead amended. His red eyes had been staring at Mayuzumi and didn't seem to notice the beautiful blond trying to squeeze the life out of Kuroko.

"Look what I had to deal with," Mayuzumi told Kuroko, pointing at their blond friend.

"Clearly there was too much sexual tension here," Kuroko said, waiting until Kise lost interest and let him go. Experience had taught them that no one could free themselves from one of Kise's hugs until the blond got bored of them.

"Kurokocchi! There's no sexual tension! Mayuzumicchi didn't react to me at all even when I was sitting on him! Did I lose my sex appeal?"

"Did you have any to begin with?" Kuroko deadpanned, finally released by the blond. He went to see the sketch on the counter. Kise whined and followed.

Mayuzumi snorted, then turned his attention to the redhead, who watched the whole scene with interest. "Sorry about all that. Are you looking to get a tattoo or a piercing?" They had another worker, Himuro, who did all their piercings, but he was off today.

"Tattoo. Though Tetsuya hasn't quite managed to convince me, but he invited me to come take a look around," the redhead said. "I'm Akashi Seijurou."

He nodded. "Name's Mayuzumi Chihiro." He pulled out a couple binders. "The blue one is some of Kuroko's work, the gray one is mine." He watched as Kuroko looked over his sketch.

"You have perfect lines here," Kuroko commented in approval. "Are they getting it in color?"

"Thanks and not today, they'll be here in about forty minutes though. You have any clients coming in today?"

"Two, both later though," Kuroko replied. He turned back to Akashi. "I'm sorry, Kise being here kind of throws us all off."

"You guys are so mean to me," Kise whined, pulling on Kuroko's sleeve.

Akashi shook his head. "I don't mind, I'm here taking up your time after all." He skimmed through some of Kuroko's work before looking at the gray binder. He looked up at Mayuzumi who finally stood up go ruffle Kise's hair and get him to pull away from Kuroko. While he was busy with the blond, Akashi opened the gray binder.

Kuroko's work was beautiful but so was Mayuzumi's. There was a delicate grace through some, a harsh sharpness through others, some soft, some fierce. He could see why he and Kuroko were starting to get really popular.

Kise popped up beside him. "You could also check out their Instagram! They have neat stuff on there too! By the way I'm—"

"Kise Ryouta, I've seen some of your shoots." Akashi replied with a smile.

The blond lit up and started bouncing eagerly on his feet. Everyone could tell he was two seconds from talking their ears off.

"Oh no," Kuroko and Mayuzumi groaned.

"You're dealing with him." Mayuzumi immediately said.

"I dealt with him last time," Kuroko complained.

"We should call Kasamatsu," Mayuzumi decided as Kise started talking to Akashi all about his latest shoots and the kind of things he did, along with the people he met.

"Good idea. I'll go do that, you distract him." Kuroko disappeared into the back of their shop after stealing Mayuzumi's cell phone.

"Hey, that's not fair!" Mayuzumi groaned, but he saw that Akashi didn't seem bothered by the blond. Going by how he's dressed as a businessman, he must be used to dealing with people.

The silver-haired tattoo artist noticed Akashi had stopped turning the pages in the binder and was stuck on a particular tattoo.

Mayuzumi quirked a brow. "Do you want to get a tattoo of a flower?"

Akashi pulled his attention from Kise who was already getting the redhead's number—really, there was no escaping this blond once someone caught his interest (Mayuzumi once again prayed for Kasamatsu)—and looked down at the binder. "Oh, no, you just have amazing tattoos."

"Thanks. Let me know if you think of anything." He took one look at Kise, who was going on about something, and instead hightailed it to the back room where Kuroko was.

Kuroko had already gotten off the phone with Kasamatsu and was instead playing on Mayuzumi's phone. "So I spoke with Kasamatsu."

"Ok? Gimme my phone." Mayuzumi reached out, only to grumble when he heard the game music for Neko Atsume. It was a cute, relaxing game, dammit.

"He says to ask Kise to show us some pictures from his latest shoot." Kuroko pocketed Mayuzumi's phone.

"The one with Aomine? How bad can they be? Kise's already posed nude before."

Blue eyes stared blankly at him. "First, a love confession earlier, and now you admit to staring at Kise's nude shoots? Should I tell Kasamatsu to watch out for you stealing Kise from him?"

Mayuzumi smirked. "Go ahead, I found the magazine at your house."

Kuroko made his way out of the room. "I'll go see if Akashi needs help with Kise."

The other tattoo artist laughed. "Is he your friend?"

Kuroko paused under the threshold of the door. "We went to middle school together. We reconnected a year ago. He's going to be the owner of a company."

"What company?"

"Akashi Industries."

"Holy shit. So you're trying to convince him to get a tattoo suddenly?"

"He admits he's always wanted one, but has never decided on anything." Kuroko hesitated. "I'm not sure he'll let me tattoo him."

They heard Kise laughing about something.  
"We should go save your friend."

"Yeah."

They walked out, and Mayuzumi went over to haul Kise away from Akashi.

"So you never told me you had some pictures of the shoot between you and Aomine," he said as Akashi went back to looking through the binder.

Kise grinned. "Oh yeah! I think I came out great in them!" he tapped away on his phone for a bit before nearly shoving his phone into Mayuzumi's face. Kuroko popped up beside him to take a look at the pictures. "It's a folder, feel free to swipe between them."

The first few were normal enough, both in various outfits to showcase their finest points, posing with each other. Aomine had a playful, sexy look, while Kise had a softer, alluring look.

And then the clothes started coming off.

That's nothing new for them—both were built like God himself photoshopped their abs (and they were very proud of them too) but they were closer here.

One picture had a shirtless Aomine with his back to the camera as he glanced at it over his shoulder. Most of Kise was covered by the basketball player, but Aomine had an arm wrapped around his waist, fingers disappearing under the waistband of Kise's pants.

Another picture had a side of them with Kise against a wall, this time while wearing a shirt long enough to go mid-thigh. And nothing else. That wouldn't have been too bad if Aomine wasn't stepping close to him, a leg between Kise's and a hand hiking up one of Kise's legs around his waist. His hand settled comfortably on Kise's thigh.

"This is like softcore porn," Mayuzumi blurted out. Kise was looking at Aomine with half-lidded eyes, and the dark skinned basketball player was smirking down at him.

"No wonder Kasamatsu was angry," Kuroko commented as Mayuzumi pushed the phone away. They were scared to see what else would show up.

Kise pouted. "It's just a shoot! It's not any worse than that dominatrix shoot I did with Momoicchi and Aidacchi!"

Mayuzumi and Kuroko looked away to hide their faint blushes as they recalled the partial nudity on all three models, the leather, and the various instruments of painful pleasure that accompanied that shoot.

Kuroko cleared his throat. "Still, Kasamatsu might be a little worried."

Mayuzumi nodded. "Those pictures make it look like you're two steps away from jumping him."

Kise's pout got bigger. "I would never cheat on Yukio! I love him too much!"

"Then go tell him that," both artists said.

A glint of determination shined in Kise's eyes. "I'll make sure Yukio knows my love!" He looked at Akashi, who stared at them with amusement. "Do you believe me?"

"Yes. I believe in you, too."

Kise cheered. "I'll text you later guys!" He ran out of the shop yelling out Kasamatsu's name excitedly.

"He's annoying," Kuroko said, semi-fondly once the door closed.

"And stupid," Mayuzumi added.

Kuroko turned his sly blue eyes on him. "Funny, coming from the guy who has a matching tattoo with him."

Mayuzumi froze, quickly glancing at Akashi who had an interested look on his face, before settling his gaze on Kuroko. "Shut it, leave that in the past, it was years ago, we were drunk, it was an accident."

"Mhmm." Kuroko didn't look convinced. He stuck his tongue out at the taller male who flipped him off.

"Kise's not even my type."

"And what is your type?"

"Smaller, feistier, smarter?"

Kuroko took a step back.

"Not you, you conceited fucker."

Kuroko snorted, turning back to the redhead. "I'm so sorry, Akashi. We aren't normally like this."

The redhead put a hand up. "You all are very interesting."

Kuroko had to agree. "Did you decide on a tattoo?"

Akashi glanced at his watch. "I haven't thought of anything yet, but I'd like to do one. Not today though, I have to leave soon."

Kuroko nodded. "Have you decided which of us will tattoo you?"

"Maybe Chihiro?"

Mayuzumi blinked at the redhead's familiar way of using his name. Then he realized with dread that this might be like another Kise situation and prepared himself to have the redhead in his life. He wasn't hyper like Kise, how bad could it be? "Sure. Let me know when and what you want and I'll do my best to give it to you."

Red eyes widened for a fraction of a second before returning to normal. He smiled, and Mayuzumi's breath momentarily hitched.

Oh, Mayuzumi was going to regret this.

And going by the knowing look Kuroko shot him from behind Akashi, he knew he was right.

Akashi nodded. He turned to Kuroko. "I'll likely come next week, but I'll call if anything comes up."

"Alright. Let us know."

They watched Akashi leave, waiting until he got into a black car that came for him and drove off, before they spoke.

"No."

Kuroko looked innocent. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"He's not going to be another Kise."

"Don't want another matching tattoo?"

Kuroko was such a little shit.

It was then Mayuzumi's client came in with a smile, eager for their tattoo.

Mayuzumi greeted them before telling Kuroko, "Get lost you little terror, I'm busy."

Kuroko snorted but left Mayuzumi and his client alone.

With Akashi in the picture, Kuroko knew things were going to be interesting around here, which was good because he was bored.

Kuroko could do with spicing things up around here.

* * *

 **Monkey: Thanks for reading! Please excuse any mistakes! Hopefully I'll update soon lol. Oh, what kind of tattoos should everyone have? And where? I'm still taking ideas lol.**


	2. Chapter 2

"Hey asshole, you have my lunch?" Mayuzumi called out over his shoulder without stopping what he was doing. He hadn't heard the bell ring when the door opened (both he and Kuroko were capable of doing this and they swore never to tell anyone how they did it), but he heard shuffling behind him.

The silver-haired tattoo artist, who was in the midst of tattooing a colorful hummingbird on a first-timer, turned around and didn't see Kuroko. Instead, he saw a redhead he hadn't seen in a month.

"You're not Kuroko," Mayuzumi commented.

His blue-haired coworker popped up just behind Akashi, holding a bag of takeout food. "Your observational skills are as amazing as always."

"Shut up." Mayuzumi went back to the girl he was tattooing. He wiped off some of the pink he was using. "How are you doing, sweetheart? Need a break?" His gentle voice surprised Akashi, who stood back as Kuroko walked over to look at the tattoo.

The girl, a young brunette with a small frown, shook her head slowly as Mayuzumi tattooed the beautiful bird over her hip. She felt a little shy now that there were other people watching her struggle to get her first tattoo.

"You sure?" Mayuzumi offered her a bottled water, which she accepted and took small sips from. "There's no rush, we can take a break."

"No, I want it to be over quicker," she said in a small, but firm voice.

Mayuzumi smiled, proud. "Alright, sweetheart, bear with me a little longer, we're almost done."

"I like the saturation of the colors you used," Kuroko commented, "your lines are perfect as usual."

"Thanks, I've been working hard on these." Mayuzumi glanced at Akashi. "Haven't seen you in a while."

Akashi watched the artist work on the reddened skin. "I was busy, things came up at the company."

"You getting something today?"

"Not yet."

A smirk graced Mayuzumi's features. He had finally reached the part of the tattoo where he could apply the white. "Sounds like you're chickening out."

"No."

Kuroko was off by the front counter, looking at their appointments for the day. "We're full today."

"Right? I have two cover-ups today, too," Mayuzumi said. He worked quickly but diligently. It was his client's first tattoo and she picked a part of the body more prone to pain, but she was tough. He added some finishing touches in white and checked it over to make sure everything was perfect. "Alright, sweetheart, we're all done." He rubbed the ointment on it and told her about the aftercare treatment. She hugged him, a little teary eyed, then went and took care of her payment.

She left with a smile and Mayuzumi cleaned up before going to the takeout bag.

"Like it, sweetheart?" Kuroko mocked lightly as he got ready for a client coming in a half hour.

"Shut the fuck up," Mayuzumi replied around a mouthful of his burger.

"Chihiro, do you have any tattoos?" Akashi asked, noticing the taller looked like he didn't have any, or if he did they were covered by clothes.

Mayuzumi ignored Kuroko's snort from the other room. Instead, he nodded, his mouth full. He swallowed a bit, continuing, "I mean, I have a few all over, but I've got my main one on my back, and I'm working on my sleeves."

Akashi's eyes raked over Mayuzumi's body, completely covered in a long-sleeved shirt and pants. He didn't have any noticeable tattoos that couldn't be covered with clothes. Akashi wanted to see them. He wanted to expose the marked skin, curious to see what art he chose to display. But Mayuzumi continued eating, unaware of the looks Akashi was giving him. Akashi—whose thoughts kept floating back to the silver-haired man while he was working this past month—wanted to get close enough to him to know all his tattoos. His thoughts weren't obsessive, but they were interested. Maybe it was the physique; the blank, slate-gray eyes; the snarky attitude; how he acted with his friends; even briefly, the sweetness he saw today with Mayuzumi's client.

Akashi was interested, but Mayuzumi was oblivious.

So Kuroko spilled some cherry soda on Mayuzumi's shirt.

It happened in an instant. Mayuzumi choked, jumping back after dropping his food on the counter. The cherry soda (which Akashi originally found an odd purchase since if he remembered correctly, Kuroko preferred vanilla shakes) spilled down from his shoulder, spreading down his chest and back. "Hey, what the fuck?!"

"Sorry." Kuroko pointed to the cable by his foot. "I tripped." He didn't look apologetic, and Akashi didn't mention that if he'd tripped, the cherry soda _might_ have hit Mayuzumi's pants, not all the way up to his shirt.

Mayuzumi groaned. "I might have a spare in my locker," he grabbed the bottom hem of his shirt, "go grab it for me."

"I don't know your locker combination," Kuroko said, even as he made his way to the backroom of their ship.

"Don't fuck with me, you know it," Mayuzumi rolled his eyes before pulling his shirt off. He grimaced. "I'm all sticky now."

Kuroko took his sweet time as Akashi took advantage of it.

Mayuzumi hadn't been lying when he said he was working on his sleeves. There was a lot going on; Akashi could tell there was a blue and red Chinese dragon winding up Mayuzumi's upper left arm and there were words and smaller tattoos and bigger tattoos. He had a tattoo of something on his left hip, but he shifted and Akashi couldn't tell what it was. He couldn't keep his red eyes off that fair and marked skin. Lines of black, spots of color, designs of all things.

And then Mayuzumi turned around.

Akashi's eyes roamed the muscular, tattooed back. In particular, a tattoo of an old tree that spanned most of his back. There was an owl perched on one of the bigger branches; it was strangely beautiful, with the contrast of a moon covered by some of the branches in the background.

Akashi wanted to see all of them. He wanted to trace the designs of every single tattoo, and be there to see art cover more and more of Mayuzumi's skin.

That's when he realized Kuroko was right.

* * *

Kuroko yawned as he walked to ShadowsX one morning. He pulled his phone out when it vibrated in his pocket.

It was Akashi, asking if he was free.

Kuroko thought for a bit, then decided to call him. Just as Akashi picked up, Kuroko spoke first, "Which way do you swing?"

There was a long pause before Akashi replied, "Why?"

"Mayuzumi's single."

"I thought you wanted me to get a tattoo, not a boyfriend?"

Kuroko wondered if he could get Himuro in on this too. "You could do both. Stick it to your father."

"What happened to the sweet Tetsuya I knew in middle school?"

"He grew up."

"Touché." Kuroko opened his mouth to speak when Akashi continued, "I do want a tattoo but I haven't picked anything yet and Chihiro seems like he wouldn't like me."

"Are you kidding? You're exactly his type."

"Like what? Small, feisty, smart?"

"Exactly. He described you perfectly. Sans the controlling and manipulative issues you have."

"That's only in my company. I need to have a strong foundation if I'm to take over for my father."

Kuroko sent him a picture of Mayuzumi he'd taken a week ago, when the taller tattoo artist had taken a nap at the front of the counter after lunch. Kuroko was using it for blackmail purposes, but no one needed to know that.

"Ok? I see the picture, he looks at peace?"

"Do you think he's cute?"

"…"

"Hot, then? Come on, even I can admit he's attractive." Kuroko turned the corner and saw his shop just up ahead. "But if you tell him that, I'll end you."

He could feel Akashi smirking over the phone. "I'm just not looking for a relationship right now, Tetsuya."

Kuroko sent Akashi more sneak pictures of Mayuzumi, including one where he had a flower in his hair because Himuro thought it would look cute on him. It did, despite the murderous look accompanying him when he realized Kuroko had taken a picture.

"Why do you have so many pictures of Chihiro?"

"… Blackmail purposes."

"Maybe you're the one with a crush?"

"I think I just threw up a little." Kuroko walked into ShadowsX, waving at Himuro, who was setting up his piercing station.

"Morning, Kuroko," Himuro greeted with a smile.

Kuroko nodded at him and repeated the greeting. "But seriously though, give it some thought, I know you two very well, and I think you two would be good for each other. I'll talk to you later." They said their goodbyes and Kuroko hung up, then went to start setting up his own station. Mayuzumi was off today, and Kuroko watched Himuro walk around with a smile.

Kuroko had an idea. "Hey, Himuro?"

* * *

So Akashi had thought about it. Mayuzumi was his type—tall, snarky, attractive, and doesn't seem to take any shit; though he has a soft spot for Kise and Kuroko that anyone with eyes could see, not that he'll ever admit it. Akashi never thought about tattoos, but he was curious.

And now here was the silver-haired man, midway through putting on his other shirt, hiding away the tattoos again.

"Ugh, I'm in dire need of a shower now. Watch where you're going, Kuroko," Mayuzumi said. Then he noticed Akashi's staring. "What?"

Akashi blinked out of his reverie, catching the end of Kuroko's smirk as he turned around to put Mayuzumi's stained shirt into his locker. He also noticed Kuroko pocketing his phone. He might ask Kuroko if he took any pictures later. "Oh. You have a lot of tattoos." Here was the future heir of Akashi Industries, nearly loss for words after seeing an exposed, tattooed chest and back.

Mayuzumi went back to his half-eaten burger. It had landed on the paper so he deemed it safe to continue eating. A stained shirt wasn't enough to ruin his appetite. At least no customers came in. "Yeah, there's still plenty more I want though."

The door opened with the bell announcing the return of their other coworker, Himuro.

The body piercer walked in with a smile. "Afternoon, everyone," he had a big plastic bag in his hands. His gray-black eyes settled on the redhead. "Oh, hi there. Piercing?"

Akashi stared, noticing the many piercings on both of Himuro's ears. He wouldn't be able to hide those at all from his father before he took over the company. He shook his head. "No. I'm Akashi Seijurou."

Himuro chuckled. "My name's Himuro Tatsuya. Who's tattooing you? Are they making you wait?"

"Neither because he's chickening out." Mayuzumi replied for him, peeking at the bag.

"I'm not chickening out."

"Is that from Murasakibara?"

"Yes it is, he sent some special pastries for you guys."

Mayuzumi rushed around the counter, having just finished his burger. He reached out for the bag.

Himuro took a step back. "Magic word?"

"Sadist?" Mayuzumi offered.

Himuro rolled his eyes but gave him the bag. Kuroko was already crowding around the taller tattoo artist as both tried to get the bag. They elbowed each other a bit but Mayuzumi's height trumped Kuroko's. He pulled out a stuffed paper bag, leaving Kuroko with the plastic bag. Mayuzumi grinned and carefully waved the paper bag around triumphantly. Kuroko stuck his tongue out him.

"I didn't know you guys liked sweets," Akashi commented to Kuroko, who pulled another paper bag, and Mayuzumi, who opened his bag and pulled out a pastry.

"We don't," the tattoo artists replied.

"Murasakibara's a god in the kitchen," Mayuzumi bit into his pastry and closed his eyes in pleasure. "I only like lemon-flavored sweets."

"Should I tell Himuro that you're aiming to steal Murasakibara from him?" Kuroko asked, pulling out some delicious, vanilla sugar cookies.

Mayuzumi rolled his eyes. "Why do you think I'm gunning for everyone's boyfriend? Murasakibara's like eight feet tall, he's _not_ my type." He paused. "No offense, Himuro."

"None taken," the piercer said, going over to his station to set up.

"Tell him we say thanks," his coworkers chorused.

Mayuzumi noticed Akashi eyeing the bread in his hands. "Do you like sweets?"

"Not particularly."

The taller man reached into the bag and held out a cookie for him. "Try it, you'll love it."

The redhead hesitated, but took it. Neither of them noticed Himuro and Kuroko freeze in surprise, watching the scene. Mayuzumi defended his lemon-flavored sweets to the death and never shared.

Akashi brought the cookie to his lips, then took a small bit as Mayuzumi went digging around for another cookie. "Oh. This is delicious." He ate the rest of the cookie, then took another when Mayuzumi offered him the bag.

They were caught up with the lemon pastries and didn't see Himuro and Kuroko disappear into the backroom, closing the door behind them.

"Is that the guy you were telling me about?" Himuro asked, texting his pastry chef boyfriend that as always, his sweets were a hit.

"Yes, will you help me?"

"You know I don't approve of forced matchmaking," Himuro leaned against the wall opposite of the door.

"They're basically doing it themselves," Kuroko waved off his concerns. "We'll just be giving them a little push here and there."

"Wasn't Mayuzumi wearing a different shirt than this morning?"

"I spilled cherry soda on him, so Akashi could see his tattoos."

"That's a bit more than a little push." Himuro quirked a brow at him.

"Mayuzumi's an idiot."

Himuro smiled fondly. "And he's one of your best friends, you think he'll be happy with Akashi?"

"There's potential."

Himuro sighed. "I won't have any part in this."

Kuroko ate another cookie.

"But I can bring more sweets."

Kuroko nodded. "I'm sure it won't take long." He opened the door as Himuro followed him out.

"I hope you know what you're doing." They saw Akashi and Mayuzumi laughing together as they shared the bag of sweets.

"I don't, but how hard can it be?"

* * *

 **Monkey: I'm having fun with this story lol. Thanks for favoriting and following! You guys are great!**


	3. Chapter 3

Mayuzumi had him crowded against a wall. Akashi was looking up, defiant, but Mayuzumi smirked down at him, knowing he could overpower the smaller man anytime he wanted.

Akashi knew it too, maybe that's why he didn't bother fighting back when Mayuzumi leaned down and kissed him.

It was soft as first; just getting a feel for the other's lips, almost like they were shy. Mayuzumi stepped a little closer, but it was Akashi grabbing onto the front of his shirt and forcing them closer that changed the moment.

There were tongues and teeth and soft, breathy moans that only the other could hear. Mayuzumi abandoned Akashi's lips and started kissing down his jaw, down his neck, sucking on one area hard enough to bruise. He kissed it softly when he finished, then went back to kissing Akashi, who had his fingers threaded through silver hair, pulling on it.

Akashi didn't even notice when Mayuzumi's hand started to travel down Akashi's body, but soon it was teasing the waistline of his pants before slipping inside.

"Ah, fuck," Akashi breathed out when Mayuzumi reached between his legs.

The taller man chuckled; the sound so close to Akashi's ear that he shivered. "You're so responsive; I thought you'd keep your composure a bit more." He stroked Akashi's length up and down, teasingly, like he wanted to draw this out.

Akashi narrowed his eyes. He could feel Mayuzumi was hard too, but made no movements to help him. "Shut up."

Mayuzumi smirked again, that asshole, then kissed him as he continued to work Akashi to an orgasm.

He was close, so close, Akashi's breaths were coming in quicker. He stifled other sounds from escaping him, closer and closer until—

Akashi opened his eyes and realized it was just a dream. His room was dark—there was light coming in from the moonlight, which told him it was way too early for him to be awake.

He groaned softly, turning on his side and closing his eyes.

So he must be about twelve to be having dreams like that.

How embarrassing.

Akashi reached over to his nightstand in search of his phone—4:40 a.m.

Well, it wasn't as early as he thought. He could get up and start getting ready for work now.

He brought the sheets up over his head.

Damn Tetsuya and his attempt at getting him a boyfriend, giving him these weird dreams. His dream self hadn't even managed to free Mayuzumi of his shirt to expose his tattoos.

Akashi fought off a blush and decided to head to the shower. He shut off his phone alarm for the day and went to the bathroom connected to his room. He had a long day ahead of him at Akashi Industries but this was his life and he was content with that.

The tattoo… he wanted one. He wanted one he could hide with his business clothes. His father was overly strict with him, even now at twenty-two, so he wanted to hide it from him as well. But a boyfriend? He hadn't thought about that in so long. He had no desires to have one at this time. Maybe once he was settled in with his company, once his father was out of the picture.

But Tetsuya's pictures and not-so-subtle hints and pushes kept Akashi's thoughts straying to the silver-haired tattoo artist.

Akashi stood under the spray of the shower, the cold water instantly waking him and keeping certain other parts of him from waking up. He sighed before he started washing himself off. It was just going to be one of those days, wasn't it?

It was. It was barely noon and Akashi had already dealt with his father twice, had to fix three emergencies, fired a worker for prolonged incompetence, dealt with whiny coworkers who themselves superior to him because they were older which Akashi couldn't stand, comforted a secretary who got yelled at by his father, and realized that—with his wallet at home—he would have to eat the less than great food provided in the company cafeteria.

He just wanted to get away from this all and take a break at ShadowsX.

He clocked out at three on the dot, giving himself an early out, and went straight to the tattoo shop, hoping that Tetsuya would cheer him up and that maybe Chihiro would be there. He didn't know what days Chihiro worked and he didn't want to ask—so he didn't appear creepy and so Tetsuya wouldn't be smug about Akashi having some interest in the tattoo artist.

When he got to ShadowsX, it became apparent that Tetsuya was having one of those days as well.

"Everything alright, Tetsuya?" Akashi asked, once he stepped in and saw a pouting tattoo artist at the counter. Chihiro wasn't around and neither was Tatsuya.

Kuroko noticed him but didn't move from his position of sitting on the rolling chair with his head tilted back, staring blankly at the ceiling. He spun slowly around a bit, barely phased by the motion of it. "Just one of those days." He stopped spinning enough to give Akashi a look. "Mayuzumi's not here today. Neither is Himuro. It's just me today."

"I understand you. And I'm not here to see them, though how do you manage to be the only worker here?"

"Mayuzumi's off, and Himuro took the day to see his sick grandmother."

Akashi winced, taking a seat on the chair at the other side of the counter. "Will she be alright?"

Kuroko continued spinning. "Oh, she'll outlive us all, but Himuro's nice enough to go see her every time she's sick."

The redhead chuckled. "Has it been busy?"

"Surprisingly." Kuroko stopped spinning and regarded him with a blank stare. "Have you given any thought to giving Mayuzumi a chance?"

"You say that like he's propositioned me."

"You're avoiding the question."

Akashi sighed, leaning back in the chair. It honestly wasn't very comfortable, but he figured it wasn't supposed to be, since it was just at the front counter. "I was here about two weeks ago and hadn't given him much thought, since I've been busy with work, but this morning I had a weird dream." Red eyes rolled before looking knowingly at Kuroko, who didn't even bother to hide a growing smirk.

"That might just be enough to make my day."

"I'm sure." Akashi glanced around the shop. "Do you have more appointments today?"

"I've got three coming in later today." Kuroko went back to spinning. "That's not including walk-ins."

"Do you get a lot of those?"

"Not really, people like to plan things out. Though one time Mayuzumi had his hands full when it was a rare day without appointments and a walk-in came, wanting the gates of hell opening up to heaven on his back." Kuroko finally stopped spinning and reached for the gray binder, opening it and flipping through the pages until he stopped on the one he mentioned. "It took him about eight hours to do it, and he still wasn't done. The client came back two weeks later to get it finished." He paused, reaching for his own binder of work. "I once did a walk-in, who wanted a huge back piece of a forest scene with a bear standing near the front and some cubs in the background." He showed him the back tattoos. "It was a nightmare to get through, the first round took about seven hours."

Akashi let his eyes stay on the picture. "You two are incredibly talented."

"Sure." Kuroko waved away the compliment, but Akashi knew he was happy to hear his work praised. "Was work that bad that you came here?"

"It was. I just needed a break from it all." Akashi eventually leaned back in the chair.

"Tell me about the dream."

"No."

Kuroko snickered, standing up and stretching before going over to his station to start preparing for the next client. "I bet I can guess what happened."

"It's all your fault, Tetsuya. Take responsibility."

"I am. I'm trying to get you a boyfriend."

Before Akashi could say anything else, the next client walked in. It was a bald man who had a neck tattoo from what Akashi could see. Kuroko welcomed him, and they started working on a tattoo: a grim reaper piece that would span his upper arm. The client was being picky and after four sketches, he finally settled on a piece.

Kuroko was a calm man. It took a lot to rile him up, and it was so rare that Akashi nearly thought him incapable of getting upset, but it definitely happened. Kuroko was a trained tattoo artist and could deal with people, so he knew sometimes clients could get fussy. Of course, he would do whatever he could to make sure they would leave with a tattoo they liked. But this man was starting to push it.

Three times already he'd told Kuroko he didn't like how he was shading it or the colors he was using, even though they had already set up the colors. It was alright, he could do this. He would never let a client leave unhappy with something that would permanently stay on their skin.

So when the man started complaining about his tattoo once Kuroko finished, his patience was starting to run low.

Akashi asked if he needed someone to intervene or kick them out but Kuroko assured him he was fine.

The next client got angry with him for how much it hurt, even though he told her rib tattoos tend to hurt more because they were tattooing over _bone._ What did she expect?

His reprieve was a walk-in, who just wanted their baby's name on their chest.

Then his last customer was a bit of a nightmare.

If the man from earlier was fussy, this lady came in already telling Kuroko she wouldn't like his tattoo. He tried telling her to find another place if she was so sure she wouldn't like her tattoo, but she said she only wanted to do it here. Kuroko was hesitant with this kind of client—usually it was Mayuzumi who handled them because he had a way of dealing with them. Akashi cleared his throat once but Kuroko shook his head—he was still alright, he could deal with this customer. It took five sketches for them to decide on a tattoo of a serpent wrapped around the tree of knowledge. He had already started working on it when the client changed her mind about liking it and so he sat there, free-handing the changes before applying them and hoping they'd be enough.

Akashi knew Kuroko could handle himself but he still kept wanting to tell the client off so instead he went on his phone to respond to the emails he missed for leaving work early.

This kind of client made Kuroko nervous and he just wanted to go home; it was already a rough day. He didn't need to essentially cover-up his own tattoo as he was doing it.

"Why are you here?" Kuroko turned around to see the front door which opened without the sound of the bell, signaling that it was Mayuzumi.

The taller tattoo artist gave a short wave. "Was a little bored and wanted to swing by and see how you were doing."

"I'm in the middle of tattooing. You can see I'm busy."

Mayuzumi raised a brow. "Ok?" He saw Akashi looking at him from behind the counter. He gave a small wave. "Yo, you keeping Kuroko company or are you waiting for him to tattoo you?"

"I'm not getting a tattoo today." Akashi told him.

Mayuzumi smirked. "Bet you're not gonna get anything." He walked over to Kuroko, whose client eyed him warily. "Kuroko, I like your shading here," he pointed at the upper part of the tattoo, "but I think a bit more over here would really help out."

Kuroko frowned at him. "The shading is fine."

"Who are you?" the client asked before Mayuzumi could say anything else. She eyed him like was so suspicious for being in a tattoo shop. Maybe he should start showing up in just tank tops so he could show off his tattoos.

"I'm one of the other workers here."

"Are you saying he's not doing a good job on my tattoo?"

"He's doing a great job, but it's always good to give pointers or advice."

The lady narrowed her eyes at Kuroko. "Are you going to do as he says?"

Kuroko sighed, pulling the needle away from her reddened skin. "Mayuzumi, please leave."

"Kuroko, I hope you know I'm not insulting your work-"

"Leave. You're not even supposed to be here today."

It wasn't the same playful tone the smaller tattoo artist always used, so Mayuzumi put his hands up in defense and took a few steps back. He left them alone and went over to Akashi.

"He's had a long day," Akashi told him.

"I can tell." Mayuzumi huffed and made his way out the door. "See ya."

Akashi watched him walk away until he was out of sight. He sighed. He didn't get to have a conversation with him. Not that he was blaming Kuroko or anything.

Not that he _wanted_ to talk to him, not that he was able to look at him today thanks to the dream he had.

About twenty minutes later, just a couple before Kuroko finished, the door opened and closed without anyone in the shop noticing.

Akashi, who was on his phone checking the stock market, looked up in time to see Mayuzumi approaching the counter while holding a vanilla milkshake in his hand. Mayuzumi put his finger up to his lips to keep Akashi from saying anything, and quietly set the shake on the counter. He winked at Akashi and silently made his way back out of the shop.

Kuroko never even noticed.

A couple minutes later, the tattoo artist finally finished and he made sure to triple check that the lady liked it. She did, and she gave him a big smile and apologized for being terrible to him, she had just had a terrible day.

Kuroko told her he knew the feeling and that it was all ok as he put the ointment on her followed by the bandage and told her the aftercare instructions. She went to pay and thanked him once again and when Kuroko went to sit at the counter, he saw the shake there, innocently waiting for him. He looked at Akashi, who gave him a small smile.

"It was Chihiro."

Kuroko sighed. He took it, and yup, it was delicious. Just what he was craving after a day like this. He took his phone out, and sent Mayuzumi an apology text and thanked him right after, saying he was right about the shading and that he owed him.

Mayuzumi sent him back an emoji with its tongue sticking out and told him to buy some of Murasakibara's lemon meringue pie for him when he went back to work tomorrow. Kuroko sent back a middle finger emoji but agreed.

Kuroko practically dropped himself onto the rolling chair next to Akashi and happily drank the rest of his shake. "It's been a long day."

"It's just been one of those days for everyone."

"Except Mayuzumi."

"He's sweet."

Kuroko rolled his eyes. "Will you tell me about the dream?"

"No."

"Was that the first one?"

"Yes."

Kuroko smirked at him, biting on the straw in his mouth. "Won't be the last."

"Why am I friends with you?"

"Who knows?"

The only sound in the shop was the sound of Kuroko loudly slurping up the rest of his vanilla shake. He looked curiously at Akashi.

"Will alcohol get you to talk?"

"No."

"Then, let's go get some dinner and drinks, we need it. You could also tell me about your day."

"Ok, but alcohol isn't going to get me to tell you about my dream."

It did.

And Kuroko added it to his list of blackmail.

* * *

 **Monkey: Thank you so much for reading! I'm glad people are liking it! I'm having a hard time writing Akashi's character since he's not in the "emperor mode i will break your ankles motherfucker" mode but I'm trying lol. Thanks for favoriting/alerting/reviewing! It makes me so happy!**


	4. Chapter 4

"Mayuzumicchi!"

The silver-haired man groaned, squinting his eyes at the screen after he picked up. "Remind me to block your number."

"You know, if you and Kurokocchi didn't love me so much, I would think that you hate me." He could feel Kise pouting on the other end.

Mayuzumi sighed, sitting up in bed. His sheets pooled around his waist, leaving his exposed chest to feel the cold of the room. "We do, unfortunately, love you. So what's up?"

"Come pick me up!"

"Huh? From where?" He'll never admit it, but he was already looking for a shirt to wear.

"My house!"

Mayuzumi paused. "Why?"

"Come bar hopping with me!"

"What? No, go hang out with Kasamatsu."

"He's busy!" Kise whined. "Please? This weekend's my last days off before I'm booked for a week straight."

"Why not stay at home and watch a movie?" He sat down at the edge of his bed, a black short-sleeved shirt in his hands.

"Fine! I'll just go out drinking by myself!"

That was a terrible idea. Mayuzumi jumped up, putting the phone on speaker as he put on his shirt. "No! Don't do that, I'll be there in fifteen."

"Yay! See you in a bit!"

The tattoo artist made himself presentable, grabbed his phone, wallet, and keys, and called for a taxi.

Luckily, he didn't have work tomorrow because drinking with Kise meant they'll both be drunk straight through the next day.

Hopefully, there won't be more matching tattoos to remember tonight.

By the time Mayuzumi got to Kise and Kasamatsu's place, Kise was already waiting outside with a grin.

Mayuzumi half-heartedly patted the blond's back when he ran up to hug him. "Did you let Kasamatsu know you'd be out drinking with me?"

"Yep! He sends his blessings and apologizes in advance!"

"Please be kind to my liver."

"Let's go!"

They hit three bars in less than two hours. Mayuzumi was surprised by the little recognition Kise was getting but maybe that was because it was nearly midnight and only idiots like them were out and about.

"Ah! Aominecchi!"

Oh. Looks like they weren't the only idiots.

The blond practically tackled the taller basketball player in a hug. "Kise? Mayuzumi?" Mayuzumi had down two of Aomine's tattoos already, and with Kise as a mutual friend, they felt like old friends. "What are you guys doing here?"

"Bar hopping!" Kise cheerfully replied, pulling Aomine over to their table.

"Regretting all the choices in my life that have led me here," Mayuzumi deadpanned before throwing back a shot of tequila. It was his preferred poison.

Aomine winced. "Already drunk?"

"Nope. That's the problem." Mayuzumi asked the bartended for another round of shots.

Kise handed one to Aomine. "So, why are you all by yourself?"

They downed the shot before Aomine spoke, "I was here earlier with Kagami."

"Oooh~!" Kise sing-songed, elbowing Aomine in the side.

"Shut up," Aomine lightly pushed Kise away. The blond didn't hesitate to cling to Mayuzumi, who gave Aomine a "what can you do?" look and ordered another round. "How many bars have you guys hit?"

"Three," Mayuzumi replied. "We literally don't stop until we drop, so I'd say we have another two bars to go to at least, if not like, four more probably." Kise was nearly snuggling into Mayuzumi's side. The tattoo artist patted his head and asked Aomine, "Wanna join us?"

"Sure, but only for a couple bars, then I'm heading home."

"Great," Mayuzumi nodded. "Come join us in hell."

Kise cheered and ordered another round for them.

After the fourth bar, Mayuzumi lost track of how many bars they patroned. Kise was a happy, loveable, loud drunk. Aomine, who wasn't quite drunk but well past tipsy, was a funny and loud drunk.

Mayuzumi was… well, he was trying not to talk so much so people wouldn't know.

The three of them just left another bar as Kise was being held up by the other two.

"I'm having so much fun with you two, I love you guys so much!" Kise told him, stumbling more into the basketball player.

Aomine grinned at them. "You guys are great drinking buddies."

"I'm gonna call us a cab," Mayuzumi announced, transferring most of Kise's weight onto the basketball player as he pulled out his phone.

He scrolled through his contacts, momentarily forgetting who he was looking for, but then found the number he wanted.

It picked up after a couple rings.

"Hello?"

Mayuzumi blinked. "Kuroko? You're not the taxi company."

"Is that Kurokocchi? Kurokocchi! Kurokocchi!" Kise called out excitedly, moving closer to the phone.

"… Don't tell me you two went bar hopping again?" There was shuffling on the other end of the line as Kuroko spoke to someone else.

"Yeah, we did. We even met up with Aomine. You won't believe how well this guy can hold his liquor." Mayuzumi answered. "We all had such a good time together."

"Yeah, you're definitely drunk," Kuroko muttered.

"Nah, you're flattering me, you guys just drank way more than I did," Aomine said, stumbling a bit under his and Kise's combined weight and not helping his point.

"Mayu, what streets are you guys on?"

"I love when you call me that, it reminds me that you care despite your tsundere nature."

"Streets, Mayu," Kuroko repeated.

Mayuzumi rattled off the streets they were on.

"Ok, you three, stay there, we'll be there soon."

The three of them walked to a nearby bench and plopped themselves down on it.

"You two don't fuck around when it comes to drinking," Aomine commented, watching in interest as Kise made himself comfy on Mayuzumi's lap, who sighed and let the model do as he wanted.

"Yeah, we don't do this often." Mayuzumi told him. "One time we got matching tattoos."

Aomine raised a brow. "Of what?"

Mayuzumi showed him his, then moved Kise to show him the one he had.

Aomine laughed. "That's adorable."

"Kasamatsu found it hilarious," Mayuzumi sighed.

"That's because Yukio likes you," Kise added, surprising the other two.

"I thought you were asleep?"

"Nah."

"Anyway, yeah, at least Kasamatsu wasn't angry," Mayuzumi leaned back against the bench. "Kuroko won't ever let me live it down though."

"Because you of all people should know tattoos and alcohol don't mix," came Kuroko's voice as he walked towards them from the street. There was a familiar black car behind him and someone else walked out of it.

"Akashicchi! Are you our taxi?" Kise asked, trying to hug Kuroko, who was trying to get Kise to stand up.

The redhead helped him, along with Aomine. "More or less." He turned to Mayuzumi once Kise was on his feet. "Chihiro, are you ok?"

Mayuzumi waved off his concern. "It'll take more than a night of drinking to take me down." He accepted Akashi's outstretched hand to help him stand as Kuroko and Aomine walked Kise to the car.

Once everyone was safely buckled in, with Kuroko handing each a barf bag just in case, Akashi drove off.

"Kise lives closer to here; we'll drop him off first. Aomine doesn't live too far from him, and the Mayuzumi's the furthest out, so he'll be last," Kuroko said.

"Hey! Let's play some music in here! Someone plug my phone in!" Kise said, wiggling around from his middle seat in the back.

"No, it's four in the morning; we're keeping things quiet."

Kise pouted, then turned to the other tattoo artist. "Mayuzumicchi, Kurokocchi's being mean."

Aomine snickered at them as Mayuzumi simply placed Kise's head on his shoulder. "Sleep."

Kuroko gave Akashi directions, and every once in a while, red eyes would flicker back to the rearview to see a particular drunk who was watching the scenery pass him by.

They dropped off Kise and Aomine, then Kuroko switched to the backseat to join Mayuzumi just in case. Akashi parked the car in Mayuzumi's driveway, then went to help Kuroko with getting the silver-haired man into the house.

"Hey, I forgot to ask. Why are the both of you together so late?" Mayuzumi asked, handing Kuroko his keys when the shorter man held his hand out for them.

"I was sleeping over at Akashi's place." Kuroko answered, unlocking the door and leading them inside. Just as they had done with Kise and Aomine, they were going to help him get to bed, safe and sound.

"I see." Mayuzumi nodded. He smiled at them. "Why didn't you tell me you guys are dating? You guys are so cute together."

Akashi tripped and nearly took Mayuzumi down with him.

Kuroko froze and gave him a "how can you be this stupid?" look.

Mayuzumi, in his drunken state, misunderstood their reactions. He laughed, proud of himself. "I'm right, huh? So cute."

Kuroko muttered profanities as he walked into the kitchen, while Akashi helped the taller man get to his room.

Kuroko walked in with two glasses of water and a bottle of aspirin. He set one glass on a nightstand, then set the other glass and the pills on the other nightstand a little further away from the bed. He searched for some sticky notes to write notes for when Mayuzumi woke up. The man in question was now in the midst of stripping.

Kuroko spared a glance at the redhead whose face nearly matched his hair and smirked.

"You guys are great," Mayuzumi told them, in nothing but a pair of boxers as he sat on his bed. Kuroko brought him a trash can to put beside the bed in case he needs it. "Not that you need it, but you have my blessings." He motioned them to come closer. They stepped closer to him, then a little more when he kept telling them to come closer.

Once they were close enough to his face, he pulled them in for a hug, lightly kissing the top of their heads.

"I love you guys," he said before releasing them, then lying down on top of his sheets. He was out within seconds.

Akashi stood there, blushing. Kuroko blinked a couple times before pouting. He scribbled another note and put it on one of the glasses of water.

"Let's go."

They made their way out of the house, heading towards the car.

"He was drunk, right?"

"Unfortunately."

"Does he have a low tolerance?"

"Just the opposite. He and Kise have an unnaturally high tolerance but once they're completely wasted, it's like a switch flips."

"So," Akashi began, turning on the ignition and reversing out of the driveway. "Does he always kiss people?"

"No." Kuroko groaned. "He thinks we're dating. How can he be so stupid?"

"Will he remember anything?"

Kuroko shrugged. "We'll find out. I now have so much more blackmail on him though."

They drove off, going back to Akashi's place. There was no way they'd get enough sleep now, but at least their friends were safe and sound.

When Mayuzumi woke up the next morning, he groaned. He wasn't prone to hangovers unless he drank well past his limit. He sat up slowly, waiting for the world to stop spinning so much, then looked towards the closest nightstand. He didn't remember much of last night if he was honest, everything past the fourth bar was a bit of a blur, but there was a glass of water on his nightstand. He didn't remember setting that out, nor did he remember writing a note that said "Drink Me."

Mayuzumi picked up the glass and drank it. Then promptly coughed and gagged as it wasn't water, but vodka.

"Ugh, what the fuck?" He looked around to his other nightstand and saw another glass of what was hopefully water next to a bottle of aspirin. There was a sticky note that said, "You're an idiot. Drink this. Sleep. – Kuroko."

"Kuroko?" He talked to Kuroko last night? He was in his house last night?

Oh, whatever. He was still feeling pretty drunk and semi-hungover, so he took a couple pills. Thankfully, this time it was water, then laid back down, intending to get some rest.

He wondered why Kuroko called him an idiot.

This is what he got for going bar hopping with the only person he knows who can keep up with him. It's never a good idea.

It would be a long time before he went out drinking with Kise again.

* * *

 **Monkey: Ok, I actually wrote this chapter before I wrote chapter three but here it is now! Thanks for reading!**


	5. Chapter 5

When Akashi opened the door to ShadowsX, the last thing he expected to hear was Kuroko's moan.

"Jeez Kuroko, you're going to give people the wrong idea," came Mayuzumi's voice right after.

Akashi cleared his throat, drawing their attention to him. "I think it's too late for that."

He walked further into the shop, noticing that Himuro wasn't around. More often than not, the body piercer wasn't there on the days Akashi went. He walked over to the two tattoo artists and saw that Kuroko was getting tattooed and Mayuzumi's face was between Kuroko's legs. Akashi raised a brow at them in curiosity, "Um?"

"Morning, Akashi." Kuroko greeted.

Mayuzumi gave a two-fingered wave. "I'm tattooing Kuroko's thigh and," he added a bit more color, causing Kuroko to groan, "he's got a shitty pain tolerance." He smirked when Kuroko half-heartedly smacked his head.

Akashi nodded in understanding and quietly took a seat beside them to watch the process. Kuroko was wearing a long t-shirt that covered just enough of himself since he wasn't wearing any pants. Mayuzumi was in the midst of tattooing a large cluster of hibiscus flowers on Kuroko's right inner thigh.

"It's my day off today, so I figured now is," Kuroko winced, "a good a time as any to get this done."

Mayuzumi appeared to have no problems being so close to Kuroko's crotch while the blue-haired tattoo artist winced and panted and moaned.

It was fascinating watching Kuroko squirming under Mayuzumi like this. "Is this your first time tattooing him?"

"Second. He's got a garter I did for him on his other thigh." He tried to be as gentle as he could, but Kuroko still continued to wince. "I think Kuroko just likes having me between his legs." He winked when Kuroko glared at him.

"Aren't you going to call me sweetheart?"

"I did that by accident with your other tattoo, and you nearly bit my head off."

"I was in pain."

"Aren't you currently too?" Mayuzumi paused, regarding Kuroko with curious eyes. The smaller man gave him a blank stare, but his eyes slowly lowered to his thigh where Mayuzumi was working. The silver-haired tattoo artist hid a smile and said, "How are you feeling, sweetheart?"

"Fuck off."

Mayuzumi cackled and went to pick up more color. Akashi watched with amusement as Kuroko gasped out loud the moment he went back to work.

Akashi pulled out his phone to do a bit of work as Kuroko and Mayuzumi settled from some light banter that started shortly after that. There was always too much work to do and there were too many expectations and all he wanted was perfect control over everything, but it wasn't possible and things went so _wrong_ sometimes and Akashi was expected to fix everything. He had to be able to if he was going to take over the damn company.

He wasn't even asked if he wanted to—he didn't. But he would, probably just to spite his father.

Akashi looked up at one of Kuroko's particularly louder groans. "Does it really hurt that much?"

"No," Kuroko said, unconvincingly.

"Kuroko's probably gonna pass out; it's nothing to worry about." Mayuzumi shrugged. "I've had skins pass out, vomit, cry, I've seen others just take it with a little wince here and there, everyone's different." Mayuzumi paused for a bit, staring up at Kuroko. He glanced at Akashi, "Hey, pass me that pillow."

Akashi put his phone down and took hold of the pink fluffy pillow on the table behind him and handed it to Mayuzumi.

Kuroko intercepted it and clutched it tightly, holding it close to his chest.

Mayuzumi regarded his skin for a bit. "I'm almost done, think you can hold out?"

Kuroko shook his head, pouting as he shifted the pillow to cover part of his face. "Keep going."

"You sure?"

Kuroko nodded. He looked at Akashi. "Don't let this scare you."

"I'm more worried for you."

The blue-haired man closed his eyes and adjusted the pillow to rest his face on it more comfortably. "Mayu's gentle."

And with that, Kuroko was out.

Akashi stood up and walked over to them, watching his friend as Mayuzumi sighed before taking a quick break. "Is he going to be ok?"

"He'll be fine." Mayuzumi stretched a bit in his seat, cracking his neck a couple times. He went back to his original position between Kuroko's legs, shifting them a bit so they'd all be more comfortable. He noticed Akashi staring at him curiously. "I'm not supposed to continue, and I never would for any other skin, but I don't have much left. He'll wake up eventually." He gave Akashi a reassuring smile. "Hope this doesn't scare you off."

"I'm not scared of needles." Akashi went back to his seat, pulled his phone out again and eyed Mayuzumi with interest. "And if Tetsuya trusts you so much, then it must be for a good reason."

Mayuzumi snorted. "That's a lie, but that's nice of you to say."

Akashi noticed with dismay that his phone was dying. "Do you happen to have a phone charger?"

"Yeah, we've got tons; go check that drawer over there," Mayuzumi pointed in the direction of the drawer and went back to the tattoo, frowning the whole time.

Akashi found a charger for his phone and plugged it in, walking back to Mayuzumi and Kuroko just in time for the tattoo artist to give a long sigh.

"What's wrong?"

"Kuroko's such a brat sometimes." Mayuzumi finished up and didn't elaborate on anything. The tattoo was beautiful. It spanned a larger area of Kuroko's inner thigh as there were other tattoos going around the rest of it. The flowers were colored a soft pink, light blue, lavender, silver and white accents with the surrounding leaves in black and a dark gray with bits of dark green throughout. Mayuzumi put the anti-bacterial ointment on Kuroko, covered the tattoo with a bandage then went about cleaning his station. When he finished, Kuroko was still out cold. Mayuzumi covered him with a purple blanket they had lying around after he searched everywhere for something. "I have no idea where his pants are. Where the fuck did they go?" He made Kuroko comfortable, ruffling his hair a bit, then sat down on the couch by the front counter. "Come over here; let him sleep a bit."

Akashi went towards him, taking a spot beside Mayuzumi on the couch that had only recently been added to the shop. "Where's Tatsuya?"

"Day off. Probably on a date with Murasakibara." Mayuzumi stretched on the couch, putting his arm around the back of the couch, right where Akashi was sitting. "I've been craving some lemon pudding cake."

"It sounds good."

"It is. I'll ask Murasakibara to make some for us sometime—if you want."

"I'd like that."

Mayuzumi realized that he hardly knew anything about Akashi. When Kuroko came into his life, it was calmly, and they bonded over shared interests before deciding to open a shop together. They have a playful friendship, but it was nice. When Kise came into his life, he practically bulldozed his way into it, breaking down any barriers Mayuzumi may have had. They had a very strange friendship, but it definitely grew on him. But with Akashi—whom Mayuzumi thought he'd have an instant bond with since he's Kuroko's friend—they have been tentatively around each other, not really talking to each other. For whatever reason—maybe having Kise in his life made him a masochist—he wanted to know more about this redhead that kept waltzing into his shop. This redhead who looked _really_ good in a suit, but Mayuzumi wanted to see him in casual clothing.

Maybe less.

Ok, wow, Mayuzumi reeled his thoughts back in and came back to the present, sitting with Akashi on the couch as Kuroko was still passed out in the room next to them.

The conversation lulled, and Mayuzumi gave Akashi a lazy stare, watching with interest as the smaller man looked back at him unwaveringly. "Tell me about yourself."

"What about me?"

"Well, I don't know much about you," Mayuzumi began, "I know your name, you're a big name in terms of inheriting a company, you come here when you're bored, and you claim you'll get a tattoo, but I have yet to believe that."

Akashi smirked. "I keep my word. Eventually I'll walk out of here with ink on my skin."

"Have you been thinking about what to get?"

"I've been thinking plenty, but nothing has jumped out at me."

Mayuzumi leaned his head back onto the couch. "No rush." He brought a hand up to lightly playing with the ends of Akashi's hair. The redhead shivered a bit but didn't pull away from him. "So, what's it like to be a future company owner?"

"How about you tell me what got you into tattooing?"

"Ah, deflecting, guess I have to have be at a certain level of friendship to unlock your tragic backstory?"

"It's not that tragic."

Mayuzumi chuckled. "Well, I got into tattooing because I've always been able to draw, and it's fun to leave your art on someone else's body." Silver eyes stared at the ceiling. "There's no big, important reason or anything, just something I like to do."

"Mmm. And you and Tetsuya?"

"How about _you_ and Kuroko?"

Akashi froze, wondering if Mayuzumi was talking about what happened a couple weeks back. According to Kuroko, all Mayuzumi did was ask Kuroko whether he was in his house the other day, then when Kuroko said he was an idiot, Mayuzumi accepted it and never brought it up. He also never mentioned that he thought Kuroko and Akashi were dating. "Tetsuya and I don't own a tattoo shop together."

"True. All signs pointed to it being a bad idea but here we are." Mayuzumi lazily waved a hand around. "First it was us then it was Himuro. We seem to be doing pretty well."

"How many tattoos do you have?" By now, Akashi had turned in his seat just enough so he sat facing Mayuzumi, who mirrored his movements.

Mayuzumi couldn't hold back a grin. "I'll leave that to your imagination. And anyway, I want to know more about you."

"Why?"

Mayuzumi quirked a brow at how unreadable Akashi seemed. But Mayuzumi was used to Kuroko's extreme and semi-permanent poker face and Akashi still had a ways to go. He thought it was cute. He pretended to think it all over. "You're interesting. I'm curious about you." If he had blinked, he would have missed the tiny break in Akashi's façade with a small blush that was gone in an instant.

"I'm really not that interesting," Akashi looked away from him, towards the room where Kuroko was still out.

"How about you let me be the judge of that?" Mayuzumi reached into his pocket and pulled out his phone. "I don't even have your number." He handed it to Akashi, who stared at it for a bit before putting in his information. He handed it back, then Mayuzumi tapped away at the screen while Akashi went back to looking around the shop.

"Akashi."

The redhead turned to look at Mayuzumi just in time for the silver-haired man to snap a picture of him. "Did you just take a picture?"

"I needed a contact picture."

"Please delete that."

"Don't worry, you look great."

"Chihiro."

"Seijurou."

Akashi froze with an expression on his face that was hard to describe, but Mayuzumi had to snap a picture of. He grinned. "Sorry, I think I've been hanging around Kise too much."

Akashi could attest to that. But apparently, Mayuzumi didn't know that.

His phone rang, charging in the other room with Kuroko. Akashi went to get it while Mayuzumi went to social media. He wasn't too big a fan—neither he nor Kuroko were—and none of them updated their tattoo pictures often, but Mayuzumi did a really cool peacock piece on someone's back the other day and he meant to upload that.

Akashi came back, just finishing a call. "Alright, I understand." He hung up and looked at Mayuzumi. "Delete the picture."

"The first or the second?"

Mayuzumi couldn't help but laugh when Akashi frowned at him. "Will Tetsuya be ok? He didn't wake up when the phone rang."

The other man went over to Kuroko, who was sleeping soundly. Mayuzumi checked that Kuroko was comfortable, moving the blanket around to cover him better, lightly ruffling his hair and gently pushing it away from his face. "He's had a long day, that tattoo took about four hours with a couple breaks because he was squirming too much earlier." Mayuzumi looked around once more for Kuroko's pants but figured they were a lost cause. He was sure Kuroko had a spare one in his locker anyway. He found a water bottle and left it out for Kuroko once he woke up. "I'm surprised he lasted as long as he did."

"So does he pass out with other tattoo artists?"

"Not if the tattoo is small." Mayuzumi lifted the blanket slowly to show off Kuroko's thighs which were starting to become covered with tattoos. Akashi had seen them the other day when Kuroko slept over his house but he didn't get too good a look. Mayuzumi made sure the blanket covered plenty of Kuroko and pointed to a red, black and white garter that was wrapped all the way around the top of Kuroko's left thigh, really close to his crotch area. It was lacy with carefully detailed designs and cute with a bow on it. "That one took more than six hours, and he passed out twice. I kept waiting for him to wake up, but it was a rough tattoo. He was out for most of the day." Mayuzumi carefully covered Kuroko back up, hoped the blue-haired man wouldn't get mad for exposing him like that, and looked over at Akashi.

He nodded sympathetically. "Must be hard on him."

"Yeah, but he loves tattoos. Gotta make that sacrifice."

Akashi finally noticed that there hadn't been any clients so far, and Mayuzumi wasn't making any motion to setting up his station again. Especially if Kuroko was still sleeping in his chair. "Do you have other customers today?"

"I rescheduled them, so I could just do Kuroko's today."

"You're really sweet to him."

"No, I'm not and don't let him hear you say that, he'll eat me alive."

"I think you can handle him."

"I don't know, he might give me a run for my money."

His phone wasn't done charging, but there were already emails and texts waiting for him. He had those notifications on a lower volume so they wouldn't be too annoying, but it turned out he didn't even hear them while he was talking to Mayuzumi. Akashi replied to a text he got about work and sighed tiredly. He was too young to feel this drained. It never ended.

"Hey, do you want to go out?"

Akashi nearly dropped his phone. "What?"

Mayuzumi glanced at the clock on the wall beside them. "Well, it's just about lunch time; we can wake Kuroko up and we can go grab something to eat."

"Oh." Fuck, for a moment he had gotten his hopes up. He took in a deep breath and let it out slowly. "Sure."

Mayuzumi looked back at Kuroko who had been softly snoring for a while now. "Actually, I'm sure he'll be fine if I just lock the place up. We'll be back soon." He searched for his keys and wallet, closed the door to the room with his station in it and started to walk out of the store. He looked back when he noticed Akashi wasn't following him. "You coming?"

Akashi stared at him. "Alright."

Mayuzumi paused as he stood under the threshold of the shop. He tapped something on his phone, then smiled before putting it away. "Come on."

Akashi took a step forward before his phone beeped. He nearly swore—if his employees couldn't keep the company afloat without him checking over every tiny little thing 24/7, he had little hope for their future. He might have to do a mass layoff and get more competent people. But when he unlocked his phone and saw he had a picture message from an unknown number, he frowned. He opened the message only to see a picture of himself, sitting on the couch looking up at Mayuzumi with a cute yet confused expression—when Mayuzumi got his attention earlier out of nowehere!—and a caption that said: 'Cute' followed by an emoji with its tongue sticking out.

"Chihi—"

Mayuzumi went back into the shop and took a hold of Akashi's hand. "Come on, I'm hungry. Let's go." He easily dragged Akashi out of the store and thought to himself that he should tone down his interactions with Kise because he was starting to rub off on him.

He let go of his hand once they were fully outside. Mayuzumi started walking in one direction, and Akashi was quick to follow. "Are we walking there?"

"Yeah, I know a place that's really good and it's close by."

When Akashi had the chance, he saved Mayuzumi's number as "Chihiro" with an emoji of a tree, to remind Akashi of that amazing back tattoo the silver-haired man had. He wondered how Mayuzumi had saved his name into his own phone.

It was a couple hours later when Kuroko finally awoke, feeling well rested but with a dull throb in his inner thigh. He stretched, pushing the blanket off him and looking around. Neither Mayuzumi nor Akashi were there, but there was a vanilla shake with a note on it.

Kuroko had to wonder how Mayuzumi was able to time his vanilla shakes well enough that they were still nice and cold for whenever Kuroko wanted them.

Whatever. He wasn't complaining.

He took the shake first, savoring its taste after a long day for him. Then he picked up the note.

'Hanging out with Akashi, be back later.'

Kuroko hummed and knew he'd be texting Akashi later to get all the details.

He played with the edges of the bandages, eager to take them off so he could see his new tattoo. Actually, he just noticed he still wasn't wearing any pants (not that he wanted Mayuzumi to dress him—they were close but that was pushing too many of Kuroko's boundaries) and a glance around the area resulted in no sighting of the pants.

Oh well. The vanilla shake, his new tattoo and his matchmaking plans slowly progressing were enough to make this a good day.

But seriously, he should probably find his pants.

* * *

 **Monkey: Wow, I didn't think I'd update so fast lol. Thanks for reading and for the favorites/alerts/reviews! You guys are great!**


	6. Chapter 6

**Monkey: Guess who's out of school and can update again? Hopefully I'll be able to finish this fic before summer ends because I don't think I'll be able to update much during my last fall semester lol. But luckily there's not many chapters left! So we'll see lol.**

* * *

"Kuroko, be a little more gentle."

"You can handle it."

Akashi stood under the threshold of ShadowsX, blinking, wondering if this was going to be the norm every time he walked into this shop. Maybe it said something about himself, that he kept coming back and that it felt so familiar at this point he didn't question it.

There Kuroko and Mayuzumi were, in reversed positions from last week, this time with Kuroko in the midst of tattooing just above Mayuzumi's left hip. Upon closer inspection, Kuroko was redoing an already existing tattoo on the silver-haired man.

"Sup, Akashi," Mayuzumi greeted, not even wincing as Kuroko worked on tattooing a clock inside a skeleton key.

"Morning," Kuroko added, briefly glancing at the redhead, caught up in his concentration.

Akashi couldn't help but stare at Mayuzumi, shirtless, who hardly showed any signs of discomfort. "Are you guys going to get tattooed every week?"

Mayuzumi grinned. "Nah, you just caught us after about a year without anything new."

Himuro popped out from the back room. "Hi, there. Come to get a piercing?"

"Pass." Akashi shook his head while making his way to Kuroko's station and taking a seat on the chair in front of Mayuzumi.

Himuro smiled at him. "Alright, well I'll be going to see Murasakibara during my break," he put on his coat as he spoke, looking reproachfully at Kuroko and Mayuzumi. "Are you two going to be okay?"

"I'm in Kuroko's gentle hands," Mayuzumi assured, yelping as Kuroko applied more pressure to the lining.

With a sigh and shake of his head, Himuro opened the door, then left.

"So Akashi, you sure you won't get in trouble by coming here so often? I feel like you're here more than at your own company."

"Are you saying you don't want me here?"

Mayuzumi raised a hand in defense. "Not at all, just genuinely curious if you're at risk of getting in trouble for ditching so often."

Akashi pulled out his phone to check up on work with a small smile. "It's fine; I always leave the company in very capable hands." He saw that—for the most part—his company was doing fine, so he turned all his attention to the tattoo. "Why the retouch?"

"This was the first tattoo I did on him," Kuroko replied, dipping the tattoo gun into more ink after wiping some excess ink off the skin.

"It's faded a bit and Kuroko's only gotten better so I figured, why not?" Mayuzumi added.

"So then the tattoo isn't old?"

"I tattooed this key on him the day after we met," Kuroko told him.

"I tattooed his garter the week after that."

Akashi glanced between them. "Well, that explains a lot."

Mayuzumi grinned. "Fastest way to get acquainted."

Kuroko nodded. "Too bad I can't get rid of him anymore."

"You love me, don't lie."

Akashi watched as Kuroko added silver and dark gold to the tattoo. "So, does it not hurt?"

Mayuzumi shrugged. "It does, but I'm not too affected by it."

"I see. So, high pain tolerance and high alcohol tolerance?"

Kuroko groaned behind them, closing his eyes and shaking his head.

Akashi was about to ask why the reaction when he noticed the way Mayuzumi looked at him. The silver-haired man blinked twice, once in confusion, once in curiosity, then a grin spread across his face as understanding passed through his eyes. "So it wasn't a dream! You two _are_ dating!"

Kuroko gave Akashi an unimpressed stare. "And after I had just convinced him it was all a part of his imagination."

Akashi winced. "No, we're not dating."  
Mayuzumi reached over and patted Akashi's arm. "Don't worry; you don't have to hide it from me."

Kuroko pinched the skin near the tattoo, causing Mayuzumi to grimace. "Easy there."

"Don't be such a baby."

"Says the one who passes out."

"I will turn this into a zombie."

Mayuzumi smiled innocently. He turned his attention back to Akashi, who was staring down at his lap. "So, have you thought about where you want your tattoo?"

"Hm? You ask me this every time I'm here."

Mayuzumi blinked. "Yes, because this is a tattoo shop, and I am the tattoo artist who will eventually tattoo you."

"Oh. Right." Akashi had forgotten that bit. Here he was going to ShadowsX to hang out with his friend and see his kind-of crush. "Well, somewhere I can hide while in my suits."

"Tattoos not allowed in the office?"

"It's fine as long as it can't be seen."

"That's a lot of possibilities."

"I'm not feeling too adventurous."

"What do you mean by adventurous? Lipstick mark on your inner thigh? Smiley face on your butt?"

Kuroko smacked Mayuzumi's head. "Stop thinking about his butt."

"Oh yeah, you always think I'm trying to be a homewrecker."

"You give off that vibe."

"That's a lie because I don't give off any vibe. Like you. Hence the name of our shop."

"I have wondered how you two open the door without the bell giving you away," Akashi cut in, before Kuroko could make well on his earlier threat.

Mayuzumi and Kuroko, thankful for the distraction, shared a look and grinned. "Secret."

"Figures." And with that, Akashi finally let his eyes wander to the tattoos Mayuzumi had on his chest.

As far as Akashi could see, Mayuzumi had four currently visible tattoos, not including the one on his back. Mostly towards the front but wrapping a little around his right ribs, were three roses intertwined with black and gray swirls and cracks and wisps, looking like darkness, seeping through cracks. The roses were kept in black with bright blue highlights.

There was a quote tattooed just above his heart written in really beautiful script, " _He really had been through death, but he had returned because he could not bear the solitude_ ," and if Akashi could recall correctly, that was a quote from _One Hundred Years of Solitude_.

The redhead wondered if Mayuzumi had any other tattoos that he couldn't currently see. Akashi was surprised the dragon was the only thing on Mayuzumi's arms.

"You like my tatts?" Mayuzumi asked, noticing the way Akashi's eyes seemed drawn to his skin.

Embarrassed at being caught and catching Kuroko's tiny smirk as he continued tattooing away, Akashi looked away from the tattoos. "They're very nice."

Mayuzumi laughed. "Nice, huh? Don't really get that too often. Don't be scared of them."

"I'm not," Akashi assured, then, "I thought you said you had sleeves?"

"I believe I said I was working on my sleeves," the grin Mayuzumi gave him made Kuroko pinch his arm, making him yelp.

"He says working on, but he hasn't done jack since the dragon," Kuroko told him with a roll of his eyes.

"I don't want to clutter up my tattoos, you know I tend to like big pieces," Mayuzumi added, with a scoff, "and I don't want to hear that from someone who keeps turning down all my ideas for adding to my sleeves because they're 'ridiculous.' "

"But they are."

"But they're beautiful."

"I'm not saying that as professional advice; I'm saying that as your friend."

Mayuzumi stopped. Kuroko groaned again as the man he was tattooing gave him a shit-eating grin.

"Oh no. Shut up."

"You just said you were my friend."

"Are you that desperate for attention?"

"You can pretend all you want; I know you love me."

The two were interrupted by Akashi's laughter—soft at first, as if trying to stop it—before becoming louder as he gave up trying to cover it up. The two tattoo artists shared a look and laughed along with him. Akashi looked like the stress of the day had left him, just being there in their ridiculous company. He came across as scary, terrifying, sadistic to some people, but for the most part, he was just stressed out and had a resting bitch face. But then, his resting-bitch face had nothing on the extremely blank faces Kuroko and Mayuzumi sported when he first came in.

Kuroko was nearly done with the tattoo about twenty minutes later when Himuro walked in again, his arrival announced by the bell above the door.

"Good to see you guys haven't killed each other yet," he commented, hanging up his coat and walking over to see how the tattoo had turned out so far on Mayuzumi.

"'Yet' being the operative word," Kuroko said.

"He said he's my friend." Mayuzumi smirked when Kuroko glared at him.

"Oh?" Himuro raised a brow. "Well, that's Kuroko talk for a declaration of love."

Kuroko hung his head. "Not you, too."

Himuro chuckled at them before walking to the back room as Kuroko wiped Mayuzumi's fresh tattoo. Kuroko made sure the tattoo was perfect by his standards, then gave Mayuzumi a mirror to look at it.

The silver-haired man nodded in appreciation. Kuroko had defined the lines, fixed up the shading and brightened the colors on the clock skeleton key. "Looks great."

"I know."

Mayuzumi snorted as Kuroko wrapped the fresh tattoo with some bandages after putting the ointment on it.

"Do I need to tell you how to take care of this tattoo, sweetheart?"

"Go fuck yourself."

They smiled at each other before Mayuzumi got up and went over to the backroom to find a new shirt to wear, something loose that wouldn't put too much pressure on the tattoo.

Himuro gave Akashi a soft smile when he walked by him, "You sure you don't want a piercing anywhere?"

Akashi considered it, for an instant, but shook his head again.

"Aw, alright. If you ever change your mind, let me know, I've pierced everything before." He thought for a bit, then, "I nearly pierced Mayuzumi's dick once."

He had great timing because Mayuzumi managed to catch that part of the conversation as he walked out of the background with a shirt on. "I was drunk, but I wasn't _that_ drunk."

Himuro smirked at him. "Shame, really."

Mayuzumi immediately turned to Kuroko, pointing an accusing finger at their piercer. "Why aren't you saying something about Himuro hitting on me?"

"He wouldn't do that. He doesn't have bad taste," Kuroko replied as he finished cleaning up his station.

"You know I wouldn't be surprised if one day you confessed to me; there's too much tsun, and not enough dere in you when you're with me for a crush not to be possible."

Kuroko tripped, catching himself on the counter in the process, then turning to face the taller tattoo artist with a slight blush on his cheeks.

Mayuzumi stared at him for a second before bursting out laughing, going over to ruffle Kuroko's hair. "I'm just kidding."

"Fuck you."

"In another lifetime, maybe."

Himuro placed a hand on Akashi's shoulder. "They're completely platonic, in case you were wondering," he whispered, making sure the tattoo artists wouldn't hear.

Akashi shook his head. "I wasn't worried."

"Oh?" Himuro raised a brow, a smirk playing on the edges of his lips.

A faint red dusted Akashi's cheeks, his red eyes looking away from Himuro's gray ones. "No, I didn't mean it like that."

Himuro laughed, going back to watching how Mayuzumi was now cowering from a playfully angry Kuroko, neither of them noticing anyone else, "Good luck, Akashi." He patted him twice on the back, chuckling when Akashi sighed.

"Thanks."

Mayuzumi, who was pushing Kuroko back, away from his fresh tattoo, looked over at them, "I'm hungry, let's grab dinner." He released Kuroko, the blue-haired man attempting to fix his fringe while sticking his tongue out at him, and stretched a bit. "I'm tired of the same old scenery, let's go somewhere."

"You act like you don't expect to be found at the place where you work," Kuroko spoke up.

Mayuzumi looked around dramatically. No one ever said he was completely immune to getting a new tattoo. "Don't you see? Nearly every chapter of our lives is here."

"Quit trying to break a fourth wall to an audience that doesn't exist." Kuroko rolled his eyes as Mayuzumi waved melodramatically.

"There could be an audience," Akashi offered.

"I like him better," Mayuzumi pointed at the redhead who blushed a little while Kuroko crossed his arms over his chest because he was so used to his partner being like this. This was his life now thanks to ShadowsX.

"You're buying our dinner."

"Sure." He reached over and easily took hold of Akashi's hand. If asked, Mayuzumi would blame Kise for influencing him to have lots of skinship with people. Akashi didn't say anything and instead ignored Kuroko and Himuro's knowing look. He hadn't even known Himuro was in on whatever Kuroko was doing but didn't spare that another thought as Mayuzumi led him out the door.

* * *

 **Monkey: So I tried to fix some plotholes as I wrote this chapter LOL. My bad. But here's hoping I can update again soon! Thanks for the favorites/alerts/reviews! You guys are amazing!**


	7. Chapter 7

Akashi stepped out of the small family-owned restaurant into the chilly night with a strong desire to take a long bath and sleep for eighteen hours straight.

The company had been abnormally demanding the past couple weeks and he hadn't had a chance to go see his friends lately but he had exchanged a few texts with them. It left him feeling a bit lonely, but there was too much to do. Akashi stretched a bit, prevented a yawn, then started walking in the direction of his home.

He could've taken his car tonight but he decided to walk instead. He was regretting his decision now, of course, but he always kept his word, even to himself.

"Akashi?"

The redhead turned around, red eyes looking at a curious Mayuzumi. Akashi would forever deny his heart skipping a couple beats.

"Thought that was you, I'd recognize that red hair anywhere," Mayuzumi greeted with a smirk, stopping right in front of him. Mayuzumi was dressed with a black and white hoodie that hid all of his tattoos. Akashi mentally cursed the changing season where soon it would be too cold to be out without a jacket. "What are you doing here?"

"Going home, actually." Akashi nodded to the restaurant near them, "I just had dinner, it's been a long day," he admitted, watching people walk around them.

"Must be tough, being the heir of a company." Mayuzumi nodded, eyeing Akashi's suit up and down. "I've never seen you in anything but a suit, even that first time you walked into the shop."

Akashi smiled. "You did, once, but you were drunk."

Mayuzumi cringed, "let's not mention that again."

The two stood there, blocking the path of people hurriedly trying to get home for the night. Akashi felt a little uncomfortable—he really wanted to go home but part of him wanted to talk to Mayuzumi, even for just a little longer. And his home wasn't too far away, either. He hoped his discomfort didn't show on his face as he was trying to avoid looking at the tattoo artist.

Slate gray eyes noticed that Akashi looked collected, if a little tired, but it also looked like he had something on his mind. It could be the stress of a long day, but maybe he could do something to help.

"So," Mayuzumi spoke, causing Akashi's attention to snap towards him, "you said you had dinner right?"

Akashi nodded.

"Did you have dessert?"

"I'm not much of a fan of sweets, and I think the special of the day was chocolate fudge cake."

Mayuzumi made a face. He didn't like chocolate at all. "Then, want to go to Murasakibara's shop? It's not far from here." He regarded the redhead who bit his lip in thought. "Or I could walk you home?"

"Is it out of your way to go to the sweets shop?"

"It's actually where I was going."

Akashi laughed. "Then, I'll join you."

"You sure? I can walk you home if you're too tired."

"I'm sure one dessert won't hurt."

* * *

"Mayuchin," the very tall, purple haired pastry chef greeted from behind the counter once the tattoo artist and Akashi stepped into Sweet Swirls.

"Yo, Murasakibara, this is my friend, Akashi Seijurou."

The redhead waved politely and smiled. "Good evening."

Murasakibara nodded as he sampled one of the cookies he made. "Akachin, I've heard about you, I'm Murasakibara Atsushi." The pastry chef's eyes locked with Akashi's before he looked subtlety at Mayuzumi who was admiring the pastries in the display case. Murasakibara gave a lazy, but knowing smile at Akashi who cleared his throat a bit to ignore his blush.

"Well, Atsushi, Chihiro has shared some of the lemon pastries you made before and they were delicious."

"Thanks, do you guys want more of those?"

"Oh hell yeah," Mayuzumi quickly chimed in, smiling at the tall pastry chef. "I may not like all kinds of sweets but I can really appreciate their aesthetic."

Murasakibara huffed. "You're weird, Mayuchin."

"I've been told, by Kuroko, many times." Mayuzumi ordered his usual and told Murasakibara to make another for Akashi, paying for the redhead despite his protests. The tattoo artist led Akashi to a small table by the window and they sat across from each other while they waited. Mayuzumi tried to stretch his legs but he accidentally kicked Akashi and immediately moved his legs back under his chair. "I'm so sorry."

"It's ok," Akashi fiddled with the sleeves of his suit—it would be ok if they wrinkled since his workday was over. He just wanted a distraction from seeing the tattoo artist's face so close. He couldn't help a yawn that escaped him and missed the soft look that crossed Mayuzumi's face.

"So, what kind of movies do you like?" Mayuzumi asked to break the silence.

Akashi blinked a couple times. "Well, I don't watch movies often, but I guess I like psychological thrillers? Foreign films too."

Mayuzumi nodded. "Figured that'd be your style."

"What about you?"

He shrugged. "I like a bit of everything, little horror, little comedy." He paused for a bit. "Do you like superhero movies?"

"Maybe?"

"Cool, there's this new one that came out recently and I've been meaning to see it." Kuroko was a nightmare in movie theaters because of his obnoxious eating (done on purpose to rile up Mayuzumi and get them in trouble because Kuroko didn't like watching movies in a theater), and Kise was a bigger nightmare because he couldn't go out in public to a theater without being chased by a horde of fans that took Mayuzumi out with them. "Let me know when you have time, we should go."

"Oh, um, sure. Sounds like fun."

"Oh? Is Mayuchin going on a movie date with Akachin?" Murasakibara asked as he set two plates full of sweets in front of them. There were lemon cookies, mini lemon-meringue tarts, small squares of vanilla layer cake with lemon cream filling and lemon whipped cream frosting, blueberry-lemon cheesecake bars and squares of lemon layer cake with blackberry filling.

Mayuzumi's eyes lit up and laughed, putting a hand on Murasakibara's arm, "no, not a date, it's just us chilling. These look amazing by the way."

Akashi kept himself from visibly deflating by taking a bite of the mini lemon-meringue tart in front of him. "They're delicious, Atsushi."

Murasakibara noticed the slight change in his mood but Mayuzumi was too caught up in the lemon-flavored sweets too notice. "Thanks. Can't believe there's someone else with as weird tastes as Mayuchin."

Mayuzumi childishly stuck his tongue out at him in between bites. Murasakibara left them to eat and the tattoo artist turned his attention back to the redhead who was finishing the tart. "You like it?"

Akashi nodded.

"I come here weekly, you should come with me next time too." He went back to eating his blueberry-lemon cheesecake bars with a content look on his face.

"I'd like that." Akashi smiled, hiding it behind his square of lemon layer cake.

They finished eating and Mayuzumi walked him home, despite Akashi's initial protests.

The two stood outside Akashi's door because Mayuzumi insisted making sure that Akashi got home safely.

"Sorry I kept you out later than you wanted to be."

"I had fun. Atsushi knows what he's doing."

"He's a god in the kitchen," Mayuzumi agreed.

Akashi nodded. "Thanks for spending time with me, and for walking me home."

"Just don't tell Kuroko."

"We're not dating, Chihiro."

"I told you, you don't have to keep it a secret from me."

Akashi rolled his red eyes. "Goodnight, Chihiro."  
"Night, Akashi."

Akashi had the urge to kiss Mayuzumi goodnight but the tattoo artist was already walking away.

* * *

"Chihiro?"

Mayuzumi lifted his head from the book he was skimming through at the bookstore to look around for the familiar voice. "Oh, Akashi. Hi." He smiled, but couldn't wave as his hands were full of books.

Akashi chuckled as he made his way through the displays to stand beside him. "Need a little help?"

"Yeah, I get a little carried away sometimes here." Mayuzumi looked a little sheepish, something Akashi wasn't used to seeing on him. It was cute, actually. He helped the silver haired man with some of the books.

"You and Tetsuya both really love to read."  
Mayuzumi laughed. "Except for canonized literature, he and I completely clash on kinds of books to read." He shrugged. "Gotta have stuff to make us unique." He was about to ask something when a ringing noise interrupted them. He winced, as he searched for his phone. "I've been ignoring Kise for about an hour now, keep your eyes out for a dejected gold puppy popping up somewhere."

Akashi stared at him. "You and Tetsuya have such an interesting impression of Ryouta."

"It could be because he dressed up with dog ears and a fluffy tail for a shoot one time, around when I first met him. The imagery stuck." Mayuzumi tapped away at his phone, rolling his eyes at Kise's texts, but finally replying, telling him he was with Akashi at the moment. "So, what kind of book are you looking for?"

Akashi nearly opened his mouth to say he was looking for the book that Mayuzumi's chest tattoo came from, but then he realized he could've bought it online and spared himself the trouble. But then he wouldn't have been able to see Mayuzumi and the last time he saw him was about two weeks ago. "I'm just looking for something that'll get my attention."

"I get that," Mayuzumi nodded, glancing at the books he and Akashi were holding.

Akashi was about to speak when Mayuzumi's phone started ringing. The tattoo artist sighed.

"I better get this before he comes at me with neglecting him." He picked up. "Yeah?"

"Mayuzumicchi!" Even Akashi could hear the blond's greeting a couple feet away, but luckily he couldn't hear anything else. "Are you on a date?"

"What? No? Why would you think that?" Mayuzumi raised a brow, staring into space.

"You're at the bookstore with Akashicchi!"

"Yes, it's a coincidence."

"Didn't you say you bumped into him the other day on your way for your weekly sweets?"

"Yes, why?"

"It's fate!" Mayuzumi's other eyebrow raised as well, and he glanced at the phone he pulled away from himself for a second. "What on earth are you talking about? Have you been drinking? Stop projecting your weird fantasies onto me."

Kise giggled. "Pass the phone to Akashicchi!"

Mayuzumi did so, having long learned it's better to go with Kise's flow most of the time, and Akashi hesitantly took the phone.

Mayuzumi figured it was a conversation that didn't need him at the moment so he went back to the book he had been skimming earlier. It looked promising, but this author in particular had failed him before with unnecessary love triangles (that seemed more like love squares) and weak romantic plots (he was a sucker for a good romance, so that was particularly disappointing), so he wasn't sure if he would get it or not. He didn't notice that Akashi and Kise were done until Akashi handed him back his phone.

"Hello?"

"Tell me you love me."

"What?" He needed to text Kasamatsu to keep Kise away from any alcohol, sweets and third rate rom-coms.

"Please, Mayuzumicchi! And like you mean it."

Mayuzumi sighed. This is what he got for accepting a six foot plus golden retriever into his life. "Alright. You know I love you, Kise." His voice was full of sincerity that he would deny until his dying breath that was actually true. Platonically, of course. Kise was a happy man with Kasamatsu and Mayuzumi (and Kuroko) didn't know how Kasamatsu had managed to tame this puppy. And despite Mayuzumi batting for that team, he was serious when he said Kise wasn't his type. They would never, ever be more than friends and that was perfect for them.

"Great! Love you too, Mayuzumicchi," the tattoo artist could practically hear the heart that punctuated his sentence. "Now tell me how Akashicchi looks."

"Normal?" Business suit as always? What was Kise looking for? Sure Akashi wasn't looking in his direction and he looked a little… tired? Down, maybe? He probably had a rough day at work, considering how late it was and it looked like he hadn't been home in a while. "I don't know what you're looking for."

He could _feel_ Kise pouting on the other end of the line. "Mayuzumicchi, you idiot." He sighed. "Well, I have to get going, I gotta make dinner since Yukio is coming home soon!"

"Ok, don't get too adventurous in the kitchen, remember what happened last time."

"That was _one_ time."

"Yeah, one time too many. Anyway, I'll talk to you later."

"Bye-bye Mayuzumicchi!" The tattoo artist rolled his eyes and ended the conversation. He looked back at Akashi who was looking at the display of books closest to them. "I'm sorry about him, whatever he said, ignore it, probably." Mayuzumi pocketed his phone and waved a hand around. "Did you find something you liked?"

Akashi looked a little tense and he cleared his throat. "Actually, I'm just going to go home now, it was nice seeing you, Chihiro." He carefully passed all his books back, and avoided looking at him.

"Wait, do you need me to walk you?"

"No, not today, thanks." Akashi waved and walked out of the bookstore, leaving Mayuzumi confused.

Maybe Kise said something weird to him, since he was saying weird stuff during their conversation too. He sighed, paid for his books and walked out, enjoying the breeze of the night. He made his way home, wondering when it would get too cold for him to walk. He sighed at the thought.

If he had been paying attention back at the bookstore, he would have noticed Kuroko was there too, hiding behind a couple bookshelves, eavesdropping on him and Akashi. The redhead hadn't known he was there either and Kuroko wasn't going to let them know anything. His phone beeped a couple times. They were texts from Kise.

' _I hope I didn't make Akashicchi feel bad. But you know, Kurokocchi, I don't approve of you trying to push Mayuzumicchi into a relationship_.' Yikes, getting lectured from Mr. Sunshine himself?

' _He might like to read romance but it doesn't look like he's interested in pursuing any himself. Also, I'm not Akashicchi's biggest rival are you kidding? Lol. But I'm not helping you anymore, I don't want to see anyone get hurt._ '

' _No one's going to get hurt,_ ' Kuroko replied. He was pretty sure this would all work out soon. ' _But fine, I'll stop trying to push. Thanks for the help though._ '

' _Like, yeah it would be cute but Akashicchi seems really shy regarding feelings and Mayuzumicchi's a little dense to these things._ '

Ain't that the truth.

'You're worrying too much.' Kuroko texted back, scanning the shelves in front of him for a new book to read.

' _Surprising, huh?_ ' Another text came in. ' _Well, I gotta make dinner so I'll talk to you later, I might head over to ShadowsX sometime this week._ '

' _K._ '

' _Kurokocchi, so mean._ '

The tattoo artist found a book that looked interesting and he bought it before going home. He sent out a few texts once he got home, checking to make sure things would go well. He said he wouldn't push, but a gentle nudge never hurt anyone.

* * *

"Oh." Two people said at the same time, upon seeing each other.

Mayuzumi frowned, not in disappointment, but because he wasn't fond of Kuroko playing games with him. "I swear, he acts like I don't have any friends at all."

Akashi's hands never left the drink (was that lemonade?) and he looked a little tense, but he smiled. "I'm guessing Kuroko isn't meeting us for lunch?"

Mayuzumi sat down in front of him. "Doesn't seem like it. That little shit." He looked around the small restaurant. It was casual enough for him to like it, and nice enough that Akashi didn't stand out too much in his suit, although he did take off the jacket he was wearing. He eyed the redhead who sipped at his drink. "You seem tense, bad day at work so far?"

Akashi looked like he wanted to vent but instead held himself back—he didn't want to ruin whatever image Mayuzumi had of him being calm and collected. "Yes."

Mayuzumi chuckled. "Well, let's order something to eat and you can tell me all about it, you look like you need to let off some steam."

"If you're ready to hear about my boring job."

"Nothing you tell me could ever be boring, Akashi," Mayuzumi said simply as he scanned the menu, completely missing the faint red dusting Akashi's cheeks.

They ordered lunch and Akashi got really into his venting, showing Mayuzumi how passionate he was about his work, the people he worked with and about who he was as the heir of Akashi Industries. It was really fun to watch, Mayuzumi liked this side of Akashi. The tattoo artist talked a little about work, about how yesterday he had tattooed a dragon coiling all over someone's entire leg, from their ankles to their hip, wrapping around the front and the back, parts ending on their butt as well. It took all day, but they didn't color it; they would finish the tattoo sometime next month when the client came back.

"So have you put anymore thought into your tattoo?" Mayuzumi asked with a smirk. He still thought Akashi wasn't going to go through with it.

Akashi took a sip of his lemonade. "I've narrowed it down to a handful, I just want to pick one before I pick the place."

"Fair enough," Mayuzumi nodded. "Hey," he began, noticing that they were nearly done with their food, "you busy later tonight?"

"I shouldn't be, why?"

"We should go watch that movie I was telling you about, that superhero one."

Akashi pulled his phone out to make sure he was free, then smiled. "Alright. I look forward to it."

Akashi paid this time, all the while ignoring Mayuzumi's protests because he saw it as a way to pay back the sweets from _Sweet Swirls_.

"Fine then, but I'm buying our tickets tonight."

"Then I'll buy the popcorn."

Several hours later found them in the theater and they each bought the thing they said they would (buying a large popcorn to share) and they enjoyed the movie.

They walked out discussing everything about it—Mayuzumi was surprised to see that Akashi got really into it. Akashi noticed he was being stared at and reeled in his enthusiasm, suddenly shy.

Mayuzumi waved away his worries. "Relax, I love that you loved the movie. We should go to more, there's another good one coming out in a couple weeks if you're interested."

"Yes." There was no hesitation in Akashi's voice and he smiled up at the tattoo artist. There was something else he was interested in, but Mayuzumi didn't need to know that yet.


	8. Chapter 8

A week later, Akashi walked into ShadowsX after clocking out early from work. He just couldn't take it anymore, he needed more competent people to work for him. This was all going to put him in an early grave. So now he wanted to see his friends. Maybe a particular silver-haired man too, but that's not here or there. The bell chimed softly, announcing his arrival into the tattoo shop.

Kuroko was tattooing a sun with a blue and purple watercolor background onto a client's arm. Himuro was piercing a group of giggling girls who were all getting their ears pierced. Mayuzumi was lying on the couch, head rested on Kise's lap while the blond model gently threaded his fingers through silver hair.

"Morning Akashi," Himuro and Kuroko greeted with a small wave. Their clients stared curiously at Akashi but as he was used to being under scrutiny, the staring didn't faze him. He returned their greeting then walked over to Kise who smiled sheepishly at him. Mayuzumi had his face near Kise's stomach so he hadn't seen Akashi yet, but he did offer a slight wave.

Akashi stood in front of them. "Something wrong?"

Kise shook his head. "Mayuzumicchi's just having a rough week. This helps calm him down." He stopped carding his fingers through Mayuzumi's hair, resting his hand on his head instead. Kise tucked some of the silver hair behind his ear and Mayuzumi sighed.

"I'm sorry to hear that," Akashi said, taking a seat on Kise's other side on the couch.

"I'll get over it; I have a client coming in for a huge tattoo later," Mayuzumi mumbled, pressing his face closer to Kise's stomach.

Kise giggled. "You're losing all your street cred by doing this."

"Fuck my street cred."

Himuro finished with the girls, charged them, and smiled as they left. He turned to the trio on the couch, "True. Mayuzumi has already shown us his true colors."

"Yup. Grade A loser," Kuroko chimed in.

"Fuck you both," Mayuzumi replied without any bite to it.

Akashi wanted to reach out to him and Kise, noticing this, took hold of Akashi's hand and put it on Mayuzumi's head.

Red eyes blinked, their owner blushing as his fingers hesitantly carded through silver hair. Mayuzumi, whose eyes were closed, leaned into the touch, pulling a little away from Kise's stomach.

Kise laughed. "Like a puppy." He pouted when Mayuzumi poked him in the side for the jab.

Akashi thought for a bit. "Chihiro, when's your next client coming in?" He liked how soft the strands of hair felt between his fingers. A part of him imagined a scene where the two of them are just lying in bed together, with Akashi casually carding his fingers through silver strands. But he quickly shook out of that reverie.

"Like, an hour probably."

"Ok."

Akashi regretfully pulled his hand away from Mayuzumi's head, Kise quick to replace it with his own. The redhead stood up, glancing at Kuroko who watched him with a quirked brow. "I'll be back."

He waved goodbye to Kise and Himuro, the latter of which was sending Kuroko a picture he snapped of the trio on the couch, and walked out the door, the bell ringing after him.

Mayuzumi sighed again and finally moved to sit up.

"It lives," Kuroko commented.

Mayuzumi made himself comfortable in Kise's lap, the blond happily accommodating him. The silver-haired tattoo artist casually flipped off Kuroko while Himuro made his way to the backroom.

"There are just those days, huh?" Kise asked, curling around his friend. He always loved when his friends let him be this affectionate. And he loved being able to comfort people.

Mayuzumi sighed. "Yep." He didn't normally let himself get babied by Kise, and generally it was the other way around (Kise led a very stressful life, as did Kasamatsu with his job, and often Kise went crying to Mayuzumi and Kuroko), but today was just one of those days, in a particularly bad week for him.

Kuroko was putting the finishing touches, going back to touch up the shading on the sun and looked over at his friends. "Where did Akashi say he was going?"

Kise shrugged. "No clue."

Himuro stepped out of the backroom and stretched his arms up over his head. "I'm gonna head out early today; my grandmother wanted me to help her redecorate her guest room."

"The same grandmother who was lying sick, completely bedridden for a couple weeks some time ago?" Kuroko asked.

"She's a tough lady."

"She'll outlive us all," Kuroko echoed his earlier statement the last time he spoke of her.

"She will," Himuro immediately agreed.

He took his things and with a cheerful wave, stopping along the way to ruffle Mayuzumi's hair despite the muffled whine, he was out the door.

The door opened a couple minutes after, the bell chiming to announce a new client.

"Um, hello there," the client, a cute, cheerful looking brunet with a shy smile greeted.

Mayuzumi reluctantly lifted his head from Kise's neck and his eyes widened, hopping off his blond friend when he saw who it was. "Oh, Sakurai," he cleared his throat, attempting to look like he hadn't just been clinging to Kise. He needed to look presentable in front of his clients, especially ones like Sakurai who kept coming back. For them, it did matter what his street cred was like, Kuroko and Himuro were already well aware he was a lost cause, his clients didn't need to know that.

Sakurai smiled brightly at him. "Hello, Mayuzumi. I hope I didn't catch you at a bad time?"

Kise giggled in the background and Mayuzumi ran a hand through his hair, giving the brunet an easy smile. "Nope, you're fine. You're a bit early, but that just means I'll get you out quicker."

Sakurai nodded and walked to the chair Mayuzumi led him to. Sakurai had two other tattoos, a collection of fourteen tiny, black and white butterflies in all kinds of cute poses that went from his upper left arm to his shoulder and a tiny crescent moon with a couple flowers at both ends of it on his left ankle, both of which were done by Mayuzumi.

The tattoo artist remembered seeing him for the first time, a couple years ago, very worried about his first tattoo but still super determined to get one. That's when he got the moon and flowers tattoo and decided that he loved the way Mayuzumi did it and would come back for the next one.

The one for today was going to be a bit more adventurous. It was going to be a dragon with a rocky backdrop that ended at the sea, and the dragon was going to be colorful, with blacks and pink, purple, green and orange highlights. It was deadly yet graceful, spanning from Sakurai's right shoulder blade, down his back, all the way to the back of his upper right thigh. The rocks were going to fade from black to a light sea foam green which would add to the light blue and green of the faded water. They already had the lining done and half of the coloring and this was Sakurai's third session, for Mayuzumi to finish coloring and shade it in. Mayuzumi told him they'd see how far he could get today and if they would need another session.

Kuroko was finally finished with his client so he went to ring him up. The man was very happy with his sun, and after he paid and left, Kuroko walked over to Sakurai who was lying down on his stomach in Mayuzumi's chair, shirtless, with his arms crossed under his face. "I hate how perfect the lines are."

Mayuzumi rolled his eyes. "Shouldn't you be saying you love them?"

"No, I hate perfection."

"Get out of here, Kuroko." Mayuzumi pointed him in Kise's direction, who grinned at them as he was taking selfies to post to his Instagram. Kuroko stuck his tongue out at him but did so. He settled on the couch next to Kise who immediately started showing him some photos of his latest photoshoot with a blonde model named Alex.

Mayuzumi took in a couple relaxing breaths to steady his mind, then after putting on his gloves and having all his ink out, smiled at Sakurai. "Ready?"

"No, but it's ok," Sakurai admitted looking sheepish. This may be his third tattoo, he still wasn't accustomed to the pain and this one was a very ambitious tattoo. He honestly didn't know what came over him when he and Mayuzumi first designed it together, but it was too late to back out now and Sakurai was determined to get through this.

"You're gonna do great and it'll look great; look forward to that." Mayuzumi gave him a reassuring smile, which Sakurai shakily returned.

He closed his eyes in anticipation for the pain—he will never get used to it—when he felt Mayu softly massage the area he was going to start on. Sakurai slowly relaxed and soon he was breathing normally right before Mayuzumi started on the color. Sakurai took in a couple deep breaths and slowly let them out as Mayuzumi started working.

"You good?" He asked in a gentle voice.

Sakurai nodded, hiding his face in his arms.

Mayuzumi grinned. "It'll only be a few hours."

"Oh man." Sakurai mumbled.

On the couch, Kuroko was seeing all the pictures Kise had saved of his shoot with Alex. They did a cute winter shoot, with the two of them playing in the snow and lots of outdoor scenes with them cuddling up inside by the fireplace with hot cocoa. It was a really nice-looking shoot, with all the white and the blond of their hair really getting attention. Plus, they were both unfairly beautiful.

"She was so nice and she took me to a couple bars after the shoot. It was a blast!" Kise told Kuroko who hummed in acknowledgment. "I showed them to Mayuzumicchi and Yukio after I got home."

"Mayuzumi was at your house?"

"Nah, he brought me home because Yukio was still at work. But I was too attached to Alex to leave!" He didn't add the usual suffix because she told him she was too old for that and after many protests from Kise, he reluctantly settled on her name. "And in the end, Yukio got home before we did."

"You were drunk off your ass, huh?"

"Completely wasted." Kise agreed immediately with a smile. "But it was ok because I convinced them to have a movie night!"

"So Mayuzumi was third wheeling on your date?"

Kise hugged Kuroko close, who let his blond puppy do as he wished because no amount of protest would get him to let go now. Kise had gotten used to the amount of affection on that couch today, it seemed. "Actually I knocked out super quick, like maybe ten minutes into the first movie. Mayuzumicchi and Yukio had their own bonding night. Apparently they watched like three movies and I woke up with the two of them curled up on the couch with me laying on their laps. Don't know how it happened."

"He'll be a homewrecker, I'm telling you."

"Don't act like I can't hear you, you fucker." Mayuzumi called out.

Kuroko stuck his tongue out at him again and Mayuzumi flipped him off without even turning to face them.

Sakurai had his head up, looking over in their general direction before directing a look at Mayuzumi, who was in deep concentration. "You guys are funny."

"We're a bunch of weirdos with no brain-to-mouth filter who unfortunately came together and now can't get rid of each other," Mayuzumi corrected. Why did people always assume that they were all such good friends who liked to joke with each other? He demanded a refund for his life that turned out like this.

"I'd call you out if you hadn't included yourself," Kuroko added.

Sakurai smiled. "You guys must be great friends."

Mayuzumi groaned, his movements wanting to but not actually halting. "Sakurai, please, you're gonna make me hurl."

The door opened and the bell chimed, announcing Akashi's arrival back into the main setting of ShadowsX.

Kise and Kuroko's eyes zeroed in on the bag in the redhead's hand.

"Hi again," Akashi waved to them. He noticed that Mayuzumi was already working with his client and smiled softly at seeing him working despite how he was earlier.

Mayuzumi looked over at him and gave a small wave. "Sorry, I was a dick earlier."

Akashi held up the bag with a shake of his head. "I brought sweets from Atsushi's shop."

Mayuzumi paused in his tattooing, causing Sakurai to raise his head up and look curiously at the newcomer. "Did you bring lemon cookies?"

"I brought all your favorites."

"Oh my god, I love you." Mayuzumi looked like he was a few seconds away from leaving Sakurai and rushing to Akashi with the redhead noticing this.

He laughed (and would deny a faint red dusting his cheeks at the tattoo artist's words), setting the bag on the counter at the front of the store. "They'll still be here when you're done."

"You're my hero." He went back to working on the tattoo that was—so far—looking really soft and pretty.

Akashi's attention was drawn by the tattoo he was working on and Mayuzumi quickly waved him over.

"This is Sakurai, Ryo. He's gotten some tatts from me before. This is the latest one we're doing, third session." Mayuzumi explained as Sakurai timidly waved at the redhead.

"Hello Ryo, I'm Akashi Seijurou. The tattoo looks amazing so far."

Sakurai looked happy. "I can't wait for it to be done." He winced a bit under Mayuzumi's hands.

"You're doing great, do you want to take a break?" Mayuzumi asked, hand hovering over Sakurai's skin.

The brunet shook his head. "I'm ok right now."

"He just wants to take a break, so he can eat the snacks Akashi brought." Kuroko cut in. He and Kise were now just watching funny videos on YouTube, including interviews Aomine had done after some of his games.

Kise quickly raised a hand. "I can come feed you!"

"Don't come near me or I will throw my ink at you." Mayuzumi refused.

"Mayuzumicchi," Kise whined with a pout. "Last time you did that I got yelled at by my hairstylists and got in trouble! It was really hard to get out of my hair!"

"Which is why I aimed at your hair."

"Ungrateful bastard, huh?" Kuroko spoke up with a smirk.

"Eat me, Kuroko."

"You wish."

Mayuzumi noticed that Sakurai was shaking a little and looked over at his face, worried, only to see that Sakurai was trying to hold back his laughter. He sighed in relief. "How you feeling?"

"Better. You guys are great. We can take a break if you want to eat the cookies?"

Mayuzumi shook his head. "It's all about you right now, I'll hold off as long as you can." He looked at Akashi. "Thank you for the sweets," he hoped the sincerity in his voice got through to the redhead. It wasn't often someone spoiled him with all his favorite sweets.

Akashi nodded. "I hope they help."

Mayuzumi gave him a smile. "You already have."

Akashi found himself staring into silver eyes and neither broke away until Sakurai sneezed, drawing the tattoo artist's attention back to him. Akashi cleared his throat. "I'll be on the couch with them." He pointed at the other two who were back at watching videos.  
Mayuzumi nodded and went back to work.

Roughly an hour later, they took a break. Sakurai was a little sore and they still had the rest of the tattoo to get through, including the bottom half that was still hidden under his clothes.

Mayuzumi brought him some water and went to the bag of cookies. He ate a handful before Sakurai even finished his water. "I haven't had the chance to get anything from Murasakibara this week, didn't realize that was bumming me out too." He licked his lips at the lemon cupcake with raspberry frosting and happily dug in. He offered the bag to Akashi who shook his head and told them they were all for him. Mayuzumi, with the leftover affection from earlier, walked over to them and gave Akashi a hug to show his gratitude. "I owe you."

"No, that's ok." He was unsure of what to do, but Mayuzumi was already pulling away. Akashi took in a deep breath, "Just wanted to help you, a bit."

Mayuzumi ate another lemon square. "You're awesome."

He walked back to Sakurai who was feeling a little shy because he'd have to expose himself a bit.

Mayuzumi noticed and ate his last lemon cookie. "If you don't want them to come over and look, I won't let them." Because he knew Sakurai wasn't shy around him anymore, just in front of the others he hadn't gotten to know, especially considering one of them is a model.

Sakurai shyly nodded and he took off his clothes with Mayuzumi covering him so that only the tattoo area was visible.

Mayuzumi noticed that Sakurai was having a bit of a hard time relaxing once he got to his lower back area. "So I read one of the books you mentioned before," he mentioned the title, "and it broke my fucking heart. Thanks so much for that."

Sakurai giggled. "But it was good, right?"

"It was but was it worth the heartbreak? Like, I didn't even see that ending coming at all."

Sakurai looked happy. "If you liked it, I can recommend another book?"

"That'd be great." Mayuzumi switched colors, noticing that Sakurai seemed better now. "I'll kick your ass if it makes me sad."

Sakurai laughed.

Over on the couch, Kise was stretching. He'd been on that couch for too long and he was itching to play some basketball with Yukio later, if he wasn't too tired from work. Maybe Aomine, in case Yukio came home in a bad mood. Kise noticed that Mayuzumi's attention was all on Sakurai, so the model turned his attention to Akashi.

"So, Akashicchi," he began, "how are you planning to ask Mayuzumicchi out?"

Kuroko and Akashi, who had been talking about their middle school days, froze and darted a look at the silver-haired man who didn't even hear them, and was laughing along with Sakurai who was telling him of some book he found the other day at the shop and how the main character was ridiculous but loveable.

Kuroko raised a brow at the model. "I thought you didn't want to be involved?"

"I don't, I'm just curious."

They both turned to look at Akashi expectantly. "Um." He shrugged. "I honestly don't know." Right now, he wasn't even thinking about something like that.

"Maybe he won't have to. Maybe Mayuzumi will ask first." Kuroko pointed out.

Kise looked thoughtful. "Well, we'll just have to see."

It took another hour and a half before Mayuzumi declared the session done. He helped Sakurai cover up enough to look at himself in the full length mirror. Sakurai teared up.

"I hope those are happy tears," Mayuzumi raised a brow.

Sakurai smiled, wiping them away. "Yes. I love it." And with that, this tattoo was done.

Mayuzumi cleaned off the tattoo, settled the ointment and bandages and reminded Sakurai about the aftercare, especially with one this large. Sakurai gave Mayuzumi a surprise hug, the tattoo artist carefully hugging back to avoid putting too much pressure on the fresh tattoo.

"I'll come back for my next one!" He waved after he paid and then he left.

Mayuzumi sighed and sank into the couch beside Kise who wrapped an arm around him.

"Ok?"

Mayuzumi nodded. "Yeah, doing better than I was earlier. Thanks guys. Especially you, Akashi." He smiled tiredly at them.

"Let's go out drinking!" Kise suggested happily.

Akashi and Kuroko immediately stood up from the couch and backed away. Kise pouted at their actions. Mayuzumi laughed and shook his head.

"Another day, Kise."

"Fine," he whined.

This is good, Akashi thought as he looked around at the three laughing friends. Somehow, he'd wormed his way into their hearts just as they had with him. He liked being here and the atmosphere was fun. Mayuzumi was so sweet and Akashi liked his friendship with him.

He briefly entertained the idea of asking him out but for now, decided against it. This was good, right now.

He was happy like this.

"Let's all go crash at Kuroko's place." Mayuzumi suggested.

"Why not your place?"

"I'm not gonna lie, I wanna look for blackmail material."

"Well at least you're honest." Kuroko sighed. "Alright, let's go."

* * *

A month had passed since then.

Akashi and Mayuzumi had met up a few times during that time since Akashi couldn't find a lot of time to go to ShadowsX while the shop was still open. Things were starting to get busier and busier at the company with the coming holidays. He still tried to go once a week if he could.

Mayuzumi and Akashi were happy, they were getting closer.

Kuroko gave Akashi knowing looks and thumbs up whenever he saw him. Akashi kept telling him it wasn't like that, at least not yet.

He still loved to look at those silver eyes and wondered if those times he felt like they were on him when he wasn't paying attention was just his imagination. They were even getting more affectionate, with the two less shy about casual touching.

Mayuzumi would text Akashi at some ungodly hour of the night, telling him of how a book just ended and needing someone to talk to about the book. (Kuroko wasn't an option because after the first few times of doing this, Kuroko swore he would kill him if he didn't let him sleep. They could talk about the book in the morning over coffee.)

Another month passed the same way.

And it was great.

Until Akashi seemed to drop off the face of the earth the month after that.

Currently, Akashi and Kuroko were sitting in a coffee shop, one looking solemn with the blackest coffee they had, the other looking worried with a vanilla latte.

Akashi's red eyes weren't as bright as they were before, they looked miserable. Even his composure seemed to fail the redhead. He looked like he was so tired even when he was always able to mask that like it was nothing. He sighed into his coffee.

"I'm sorry if I've worried you."

Kuroko frowned. "You haven't been coming by, you haven't been replying to any of our texts either, what's going on?"

Akashi downed half the coffee—Kuroko winced at how hot that must feel on his throat—before he replied, "I'm the heir to a company."

"Yes, you've always been." Kuroko didn't want to touch the latte, despite it being one of his favorites. "What changed?"

Akashi shrugged. "Guess my father saw me being happier than usual? Thought something was wrong." He drank more of the coffee. "He had me followed."

"What?" Kuroko raised both eyebrows. "For how long? Why?"

Akashi finished off his coffee and made to get up to order another one. Kuroko reached a hand out to stop him and carefully pushed his latte towards him. Akashi's eyes softened briefly before that disappeared again, taking the latte with a sigh. "Because communication doesn't exist in this family?" He snorted, bringing the latte up to his lips but lowering it before he could take a sip. "Saw me frequenting ShadowsX. Thought it was weird but let it slide after he saw that one of the owners was a middle school friend."

Kuroko wasn't sure how he felt about someone digging up that kind of information on him.

"Maybe he's not the best influence but he can't be that bad if we were classmates," Akashi spoke, as if he was bitterly mocking someone who said the same words to him. "Like I'm five and can't decide for myself who I associate with." He took a sip of the latte, licking his lips at the surprisingly sweet taste.

"The problem was the other owner."

Kuroko wasn't following. "What's wrong with him?"

Any other day he'd list off all of Mayuzumi's terrible qualities but this was different.

"Nothing, until he noticed that I was hanging out with him more and more. Something about Chihiro not being worth my time as it was, that I should be spending more time at work and less with him."

"You deserve a little free time to be with friends though."

"Maybe he would agree if he hadn't seen us going on what he called dates." He drank the latte more calmly than he had the coffee. "Remember that one time when Ryota invited us out for drinks but you didn't go because you were visiting your friend Shigehiro?"

Kuroko nodded.

"Well I was the designated driver and I watched Ryota and Chihiro get wasted after five hours of drinking and I took Ryota home. Then I took Chihiro home."

Kuroko didn't like where this was going.

"Chihiro seems to have a penchant for kissing me when he's drunk." Akashi shrugged, as if his crush on Mayuzumi wasn't worth mentioning if his crush kisses him.

"Wait, what?" Kuroko frowned, thinking back to around that time a couple months back. "I don't remember being told about that."

Akashi held the latte in his hands, staring into the dark liquid. "It wasn't something I thought worth mentioning because it just," he sighed, "I mean it was near the corner of my mouth but he was just saying how much he liked having me in his life, which made me happy."

Kuroko nodded.

"And I saw how Ryota gave him a big kiss on the cheek before we dropped Ryota home. And he gave me one too."

Another nod.

"And Chihiro didn't remember anything the next day."

"Ok?"

Akashi gave a sardonic smirk. "Didn't think my father would have me followed that day and come to the conclusion that I can't associate with a super model that has Ryota's reputation, especially one that could ruin my reputation by being caught in public with him." Kuroko looked confused. "We apparently lead very different lifestyles."

"I'm not getting where this is going."

"My dad's not homophobic, but when his lackeys got back to him, they got pictures of the three of us and he doesn't approve. At all. Thinks I'm wasting my time with this." Akashi carefully swirled the latte around in the cup. "Thinks this will ruin me. Thinks this will be bad for the company. Because the company matters more than I do."

Kuroko waited.

"So he forbid me from going to ShadowsX and from seeing any of you." Akashi finished the latte and wondered if it was worth it to get another cup of coffee. He hadn't slept well in weeks since this mess started, and now he couldn't go his days without having at least three cups of coffee in his system. He could feel a crash coming at any time now, and only the constant coffee was getting him through his roughest days and nights. "In particular, Chihiro." He leaned back in the chair, casually draping himself over the back of it, a move so unlike Akashi that Kuroko was even more worried than before. "I'm old enough to make my own friends and not listen to who I should and shouldn't hang out with. But then he told me he would take everything from me since it's clear that I'm not putting in the kind of effort to deserve a company."

"That's ridiculous." Kuroko made a fist. "He doesn't have a right."

"He has all the rights." Akashi shrugged, the action weird in his position. "He's trying to run me into the ground to prove that I can't handle the company."

"Have you talked to Mayu about this?"

Akashi shook his head. "I can't be talking to him. He said if I wanted someone so bad that I would settle for anyone. He'd find me another guy who runs a company that would make merging with ours an asset."

Kuroko winced. "So… now what?"

"Now I go back to my old, boring life and hope to hell I outlive my father so I can take everything from him." A dark looked crossed through Akashi's eyes. "He won't see reason. So I'll make him regret everything by either driving this company into hell or taking it all out from under him."

"Akashi—"

"Relax, I'm not planning a coup. Well." Akashi shook his head. "Anyway, thanks for the good months I had with you guys." He stood up to leave. "Oh, and don't be alarmed by anything you hear in the news."

And with that, he left.

And Kuroko was left dumbfounded.

Things were going so well and now Akashi just walked out?

What?

Kuroko stood up to leave, taking both of the cups with him to the trash, and felt his phone vibrate in his pocket.

He walked out of the shop, pulling out the phone to see who it was.

 _\- Don't tell Chihiro anything.-_

What the fuck.

* * *

 **Monkey: So, here's some semblance of a plot lol. And next on "I didn't think that character would show up in this fic (honestly, neither did I)" is the apologizing mushroom! He's a cutie lol and I wanted more people for some Mayu love. Not sure how many more surprise characters will show up, what do you guys think? Should I add more characters to have some interesting dynamics with .. Mayu? LOL.**

 **Guess who deviated from the outline even though she told herself not to freaking do it because it would be a bad idea? ME. This is all Kise's fault, he wasn't even supposed to be in this fic but he's one of my faves and he just HAD to be here. I was talking to my friend when I was writing the previous chapter and I was like, "Why is Kise in this fic? It was just supposed to be like a one or twoshot with Kuroko, Akashi and Mayu, why is Kise here?" And she said, "Um, because he's your fave?" Oh. Right. I forgot lmao. But I have a lot of stuff to do for classes (last semester! Graduation soon! Well not soon soon because there's still lots to do lol) so I don't know when I'll update this next but I will try to get it out soon! I already wrote a scene from what will be the last chapter~ isn't that exciting lol.**

 **Thanks for reading! And for alerting/reviewing/favoriting! You guys are great!**


	9. Chapter 9

Mayuzumi woke up with a groan. His eyes slowly opened, already protesting the amount of light in the room. His head was killing him and his whole mouth hurt.

"Ah, you're awake," came a smooth, friendly voice. "How do you feel?"

Mayuzumi found himself sitting up on a familiar couch as the world spun slowly around him. That can't be a good sign for how his day was going to go. "Like shit." Why did his mouth hurt so much? Oh wait, that was his tongue that felt so awful, not his whole mouth.

The voice chuckled. "Not surprised, considering what you and Ryota were up to last night."

A hand holding a glass of water and another holding some painkillers appeared in Mayuzumi's sight.

He reached out for the pills, but before he could take them, he noticed two things.

One: there was a heavy weight on his stomach and legs. Upon closer inspection, he saw a familiar blond head, its owner still dead to the world as he lay on top of Mayuzumi.

Two: he was about to vomit.

The owner of the voice that woke him, Kasamatsu, must have noticed his expression and took a step back in time for Mayuzumi to—as carefully as he could while his body was trying to start purging itself—dislodge Kise off of him, before he stumbled off the couch and ran to the nearest bathroom.

He made it, luckily, but he felt so bad and he couldn't understand why. He remembered going out to drink with Kise and Himuro and…

Oh shit.

 _That's_ why he felt so bad.

The only person he knew who had a stronger alcohol tolerance than him and Kise, was _Himuro_.

And since him and Kise were too _stupid_ to back down from a drinking challenge against Dionysus himself, of course they went way passed their limit.

Mayuzumi's liver was going to fucking end him if he kept this up, he could feel it. He lived a shitty life and his liver was going to send him into the ground immediately if he ever went drinking with Himuro again.

He sighed. So that's why he felt so shitty. He remembered Kise challenging Himuro first, taking one for the team. Then it was Mayuzumi's turn—doing that was the only way they could push Himuro past his limit.

He took a few deep breaths and flushed the toilet after he was convinced he finished vomiting everything he'd ever eaten. Shakily standing up, he walked to the sink to wash his face and rinse out his mouth.

He winced when he rinsed out his mouth. There was that horrible pain again. What was it?

Mayuzumi looked into the mirror, seeing the water still dripping off his face and off the strands of his hair. His eyes were red but he chalked that up to lack of sleep and borderline alcohol poisoning. He didn't see any bruising on his face or near his mouth so he couldn't figure out what was wrong.

He opened his mouth and looked into the mirror.

He screamed.

* * *

The door to _ShadowsX_ opened without a sound and Kuroko, who was in the midst of drinking a vanilla shake at the counter, looked up.

"Morning," he greeted.

Mayuzumi, wearing a surgical mask and angrily staring at his phone, rounded his glare on Kuroko and walked to his station without a word.

Himuro stepped out of the backroom, noticing the silver-haired tattoo artist ignoring them. They both knew he had his days where he wasn't in a great mood in the morning but this felt different. He and Kuroko shared a concerned look.

They held a silent conversation, with Kuroko shaking his head and pointing at the piercer, followed by Himuro shaking his head and pointing back at Kuroko.

They heard Mayuzumi angrily click his tongue while typing on his phone, like he was in the midst of an argument.

Kuroko, distracted by wondering who was feeling Mayuzumi's wrath this early in the morning, didn't see Himuro come up behind him and push the wheeled chair Kuroko was sitting on over to Mayuzumi's direction.

Kuroko had half a second to mentally curse Himuro and mourn his vanilla shake left behind at the counter. The other half second was used to stare at Mayuzumi, who was glaring right at him again.

"You ok?" Kuroko braved, trying to scoot the chair out of Mayuzumi's immediate reach without his friend noticing.

Mayuzumi rolled his eyes and went back to texting.

Kuroko blinked in surprise before scooting his chair back to the counter and shrugging at Himuro, who looked worried. They watched as Mayuzumi fiddled with his mask just in time for his first client to walk in through the door. The two were worried that Mayuzumi's attitude would chase the client out, but he spoke politely to them, in a voice too soft for Kuroko and Himuro to hear, but Mayuzumi got his client ready and got right to work.

Mayuzumi's actions were methodical, the usual warmth gone, including the kind reassurances and pet names he used.

Kuroko stood up and pulled Himuro with him into the backroom, locking the door behind them, and took out his phone. He dialed Kise's number and put him on speaker-phone.

"Hello?"

"What's wrong with Mayuzumi?" Kuroko immediately asked.

Kise chuckled nervously. "Hi, Kurokocchi; what do you mean?"

"He's about three seconds away from murdering someone, probably me and Kuroko," Himuro said.

"Oh Himurocchi, you're exaggerating." Kise sounded like he was lying through his teeth—that blond couldn't lie to save his life. His only tragic flaw, really.

"Kise."

"Ahaha… is he wearing a mask?"

"Yeah."

"Has he spoken?"

"No, not to us at least. He was softly talking to his client though."

"Ah. Yeah, he's fine, don't worry."

"I don't believe you."

"Is he sick?"

"No, not sick."  
"Are you going to tell us or not?"

Both of them could feel Kise pouting. "Well, it's up to him, but I mean, Himurocchi should already know."

Kuroko raised a brow at him. Himuro shrugged and shook his head.

"Kise," Kuroko began, "did something happen when you three went out drinking over the weekend?" They went Saturday and it was now Monday morning. Plenty of time to fill with regret for poor decisions made while under the influence.

"Well, lots of things happen when we go out drinking."

"Kise."

The blond whined. "I don't want Mayuzumicchi to get angry at me. Just ask him. I can at least tell you that he's okay, just, a little um, unhappy?"

"Does this have anything to do with Akashi?" As far as Kuroko knew, the company heir hadn't communicated at all with Mayuzumi, but maybe he found something out and is angry? Though that didn't explain the mask…

"Akashicchi? No, I don't think Mayuzumicchi's talked to him lately." Kise sighed. "Just take my word that Mayuzumicchi's okay, he will eventually come around. I gotta go, I have a shoot." He hung up without waiting for Kuroko or Himuro's reply.

The tattoo artist pocketed his phone and with a determined look, unlocked the door and started to open it. "Desperate times call for desperate measures."

Himuro winced, watching Kuroko possibly walking into his death. Mayuzumi was already ringing up his customer and Kuroko waited until the client left before he walked up to him.

"Mayu."

He narrowed his eyes, looking uncertain but at least it wasn't a glare.

"Are you okay?"

"'M fine."

"Did something happen this weekend?"

Mayuzumi's silver eyes looked away from blue ones.

Aha.

"Wanna tell me what happened?"

"No."

"Are you sick?"

"No."

"Hurt?"

"No."

Kuroko took a step closer to him and Mayuzumi didn't move. The smaller tattoo artist slowly reached his hands up, giving Mayuzumi the chance to move away if he wanted to. He looked resigned as he let Kuroko take off his mask.

"Are you really okay?"

Mayuzumi nodded.

" _Mayu_."

He sighed deeply. Then he opened his mouth.

"Oh." Kuroko blinked. "You got a tongue piercing. You didn't tell me you wanted one."

It was just a simple metal rod going straight through his tongue, with two tiny balls at both ends. His tongue wasn't _too_ swollen either.

"Because as of three days ago, I didn't know I wanted one either." Some of his words slurred and lisped, but Kuroko understood him well enough.

"Does it hurt?"

"Yeah. A little. It's a pain to eat. The swollenness went down a lot though." He took his mask back from Kuroko and put it back on. "I'm never drinking with Himuro ever again in my whole fucking life."

Himuro, who was watching everything, let his jaw drop. He had a tendency to have an extreme alcohol tolerance, but he never really remembered what happened when he drank that much. Now it was clear that in their drunken haze, he had pierced Mayuzumi's tongue.

"I'm so sorry!" he rushed over to hug Mayuzumi, who sighed and let himself be hugged. He awkwardly patted the piercer on the back in an effort to comfort him. If it wasn't from Kise, Mayuzumi really didn't know how much affection to give other people in times like this, even though by now he should be used to it. "I didn't force you, did I?" He sounded horrified and about half a second away from crying and Mayuzumi didn't want that.

"Of course not, clearly I asked for it or you wouldn't have done it. It's okay. It's my own fault. And Kise convinced me that it wasn't too bad, so I'm gonna keep it." He offered Himuro a small, slightly strained smile when they pulled back from the hug. "I'm just in a bad mood because it's a fucking pain and I couldn't eat anything this morning or last night, so I'm really hungry."

A half-full vanilla shake made it into his line of sight. "Kuroko, no." He knew how much Kuroko valued vanilla-flavored things. They were what lemon flavored things were to him.

Kuroko continued to offer the shake. Mayuzumi caved and took it, taking off the lid and taking off his mask to drink it. The cold of the shake felt really nice on his tongue.

"'Anks."

"Is the lisp permanent?" Kuroko looked curious.

Mayuzumi swallowed the last bit of the vanilla shake. "Fuck you."

Kuroko smiled. "Welcome back."

Himuro looked like he was still a moment away from crying. Mayuzumi reached out and ruffled his hair.

"'S ok. Just help me pick out something cool once the piercing heals."

Himuro looked a little calmer after that, nodding as he wiped the edges of his eyes.

Mayuzumi felt Kuroko stare at him from his spot now at the counter again. The shorter tattoo artist had his head tilted to the side, a curious look in his blue eyes. Mayuzumi raised a brow, involuntarily taking a step back. It's like his body was already expecting the worst. "What?"

Kuroko shook his head, turning his attention to the list of clients coming in today. It wouldn't be a heavy day for any of them, it seemed. "Nothing, just didn't think a tongue piercing would be your first."

Mayuzumi shrugged, tossing the empty vanilla shake cup into the trashcan. "Could've been worse," he sent a look to Himuro, who smiled innocently, "it apparently could've been my dick."

"Which I tend to do my best to avoid now after The Incident," Himuro said with a shudder, "but I'd still do yours if you're willing."

The Incident happened last month, when Himuro went to do a dick piercing on a new client. Suffice to say there is a pretty obvious direction this took, if it became infamous as The Incident, and now Himuro makes sure he walks into all dick piercings wearing safety goggles and a surgical mask because of the _splash zone_.

Mayuzumi shook his head. "Not my style," he cringed at his lisp, "for now at least."

"I would rather see Mayuzumi with his nipples pierced," Kuroko chimed in.

"One day, Kuroko, you're just gonna jump me and everything will make sense."

"Don't flatter yourself," Kuroko said, smirking while flipping him off.

Mayuzumi returned the gesture just in time for another client to show up, one of Kuroko's this time.

Kuroko jokingly blew Mayuzumi a kiss and went to help the client.

Mayuzumi sighed and dropped into the wheeled chair at their front desk. He was so done with this day already.

His thoughts wandered for a little bit, going to a certain redhead he hadn't spoken to or seen in a while. He decided to send him a text, see how he was doing, maybe tell him about his current situation.

 _Yo Akashi, haven't seen you in a while. Guess what happened over the weekend?_

Himuro went out for an early lunch, Kuroko was busy with the client and Mayuzumi waited for a response.

He never got one.

He sent a couple more messages later that evening, asking if Akashi was okay and to text him if he wanted to talk, but the night came and went and Akashi never replied.

* * *

"Mayuzumicchi!" Kise called out happily as soon as he opened the door to his and Kasamatsu's house. He was home alone that night, Kasamatsu off working again, and he called over his drinking buddy.

Kuroko's head popped out from behind Mayuzumi, causing Kise to gasp.

"And Kurokocchi!" He hugged the both of them and practically threw them into his house.

Kuroko frowned as he sat down on the couch. "I don't understand what I'm doing here."

"We're gonna get _so_ drunk." It had already been a week since Mayuzumi's sudden tongue piercing and Himuro had checked it yesterday before he left work, giving him the okay to drink, just not to overdo it if he started feeling any pain or anything.

Kuroko's frown only intensified, turning into more of a pout than anything. "You guys know I can't hold my alcohol." He had the lowest tolerance Mayuzumi and Kise had ever seen. It was amazing because he was like Himuro's complete opposite.

Mayuzumi gave a shit-eating grin, dropping himself onto the couch beside Kuroko, putting an arm around him. "Just means you're a cheap date."

"I will end you."

Kise came out of the kitchen holding onto a bottle of tequila and one of vodka. "We'll start off easy." He gave a beautiful smile, hugging the bottles closer to himself and Kuroko deflated even more, slouching into Mayuzumi's grasp that he felt too defeated to get himself out of.

"I'm doomed."

And he was. Three hours later, Kuroko was smashed on a glass and a half of vodka while Kise and Mayuzumi were cheering him on, their game still strong albeit not for much longer after finishing the rest of the vodka, the tequila, and pulling out two bottles of sake.

Somehow, Kise had convinced Kuroko to try on some of his makeup—he was a model and while no one could deny the near ethereal beauty he naturally had, he still had to learn to accentuate his gorgeous features with makeup—and now Kuroko was wearing eyeliner, eyeshadow and lipstick. They were all light shades, not trying to distract from Kuroko's own adorable and subtle beauty and Kuroko admitted to liking the colors. They skipped the foundation because Kise's tone was just shy of matching Kuroko's and the blond didn't want to make Kuroko look awkward. In fact, he looked super cute like this. Kise momentarily debated whether or not to let Kuroko show off his tatts i.e. strip mostly, but eventually decided that could wait for another time.

Mayuzumi snorted as Kuroko dropped onto the couch, completely ready for his soul to ascend and leave his existence behind.

"I hate the both of you." At least, that's what it sounded like since Kuroko's words were a little slurred and soft.

Kise skipped into the kitchen to bring out some snacks, happy that they'd finally convinced Kuroko to drink with them. It was a rare occurrence and this was why—everyone knew Kuroko's tolerance was shit and yet no one tried to stop him. They were all terrible friends, really.

Mayuzumi stood over Kuroko, looking down so they were practically staring into each other's eyes. Mayuzumi grinned. "You look so cute, Kuroko."

They already had pictures, Kuroko couldn't even save himself from the blackmail this time. Not like he had the energy for it either.

Kuroko pouted, the lipstick making his lips pop and drawing Mayuzumi's attention to them.

Kise, still in the kitchen and unknowing of what was going on, gave up and decided to order in some pizza because he couldn't find snacks good enough for a drunken night. Just as he was patting himself down to find his phone, he hears a yell followed by a loud crash and some groans after.

The model rushed out of the kitchen only to see Mayuzumi on the ground, having tripped backwards over a chair that was for some reason next to the couch, and Kuroko was practically cuddling with the armrest of the couch, having flipped over and half fallen off the couch, reaching a hand out in Mayuzumi's direction.

A closer look at Mayuzumi's face showed a faint lipstick mark on the corner of his lips in the same shade Kuroko was wearing.

Kise instantly reacted—snapping many pictures before he went to help them up after he finished collecting his future blackmail.

Kuroko whined as Kise helped him up. "'M never ever _ever_ …" he trailed off, squinting at Mayuzumi who still sat on the floor, "…Mayu."

"You'll never Mayu?"

"Never."

"Ok Kurokocchi," Kise said placidly. He settled his drunk friend back on the couch comfortably. "You'll make Akashicchi jealous."

Mayuzumi, who had already run to Kise's alcohol stash and downed nearly a third of a bottle of whiskey, looked at them in a drunken haze. "Dude hasn't been replying to my messages in weeks, man. What's up with that?"

Kise hiccupped cutely and something in the back of his head told him this wasn't going to end well and he wasn't nearly drunk enough to handle this either.

A smaller, generally ignored part of Kise's brain was telling him to stop this while he had the chance but his beautiful golden eyes landed on the bottle Mayuzumi had in his hands and that tiny part of his brain sighed and knew defeat.

Kuroko stared at Mayuzumi, who passed the bottle to Kise. His gaze floated around for a bit (the room was starting to go topsy-turvy on him and he felt like he was going to fall upwards, off the couch—that can't be a good sign) before settling back on his fellow tattooist. "Akashi likes you."

Mayuzumi shrugged, not seeing the big deal. "I like him too."

"Do you?" Kise was surprised—Kuroko was strangely coherent right now.

"He's a cool dude." Mayuzumi sat down on the floor, where he stood and he waved his hand around to get Kise's attention to steal back the bottle. The model took it back almost immediately, that small part of his brain wanting to bring up their impending alcoholism, but it knew it would fall on deaf ears right now. Kasamatsu wasn't going to be too happy to see his boyfriend and his boyfriend's best friends annihilate their alcohol stash.

"He cute to you?"

"'m not gonna make a move on your dude."

"Not my dude."

"Mmhm."

"I convinced him to like you. Kinda."

Kise choked on the whiskey—maybe he should've stuck to rum tonight—but it was too late, this conversation had to happen and it was happening now in Kise's living room. He didn't want to be a part of it but there was nothing he could do now. His brain was just too far gone now to be of any use than to just watch this happen.

"The hell d'you mean?"

"Giant stick up your ass, Mayu." Kuroko began, his head tilting to the side dangerously, until his body followed it. He sighed tiredly, slumped into the couch. His makeup was still flawless but his cheeks and actually, most of his face had a rosy glow. "Bring in the boy, remove the stick."

"I've told you to stay out of my love life. Don't need a boyfriend." Mayuzumi wasn't plastered enough that he couldn't manage a glare. One of the things he hated the most was people messing with his love life. "How'd you even know what way I swung? I didn't know. I still don't. Maybe I don't swing any way."

"Akashi's in trouble anyway." Kuroko frowned, completely ignoring what the other tattooist said, "he doesn't want me to tell you though. Don't talk to him anymore."

"What? Why?"

"Ah, Kurokocchi," Kise finally found his voice, "I don't think…"

"Dad Akashi doesn't approve of your punk ass," Kuroko blurted out. "He's not doing good. Planning a coup. Kinda your fault?"

"My fault?" Mayuzumi stood up, walking over to Kuroko and staring him down. "I didn't ask you to bring him into my life, nor have I done anything to warrant someone's disapproval."

Kise missed the happy, sweet drunk Mayuzumi used to be.

"Akashi's gone off the deep end," Kuroko didn't seem to hear Mayuzumi, or notice the glare on him, "'Kashi doesn't even want a tattoo, he just wants to see your ugly mug."

"He never said—"

"You kissed him and didn't ask him out, you led him on, you hang out with Kise too much, you're the worst Mayu," Kuroko's unfiltered word vomit was interesting because by now he's usually passed out somewhere, waiting for death or a hangover from hell to claim him.

Kise would rather have him knocked out than this. He drank more of the whiskey, barely noticing they were almost out.

"I never—"

"The worst, Mayu, I should've picked a better guy for 'Kashi."

"Why can't he tell me any of this himself?"

"Dad's got him on lockdown, no contact with the enemy."

"You're so full of shit, Kuroko."

Kise sniffled, finishing off the whiskey. This wasn't how the night was supposed to go.

"Honestly, he probably doesn't even care? Moved on." Kuroko's voice started to slur a little more, like he was fighting sleep. "Sorry I introduced you."

Mayuzumi knew his glare was wasted on him. He turned around, eyes scanning for his things—just his phone and keys—and made his way out the door.

"Wait Mayuzumicchi where are you going?"

"Away from here. I'll see you when I see you," he stumbled against the door, pulling a gasp from Kise, who tried to rush to help him but he was too drunk now and wasn't sure he'd be of any help as he fell down again.

This wasn't an angry Mayuzumi—Kise winced when the door slammed shut behind the tattooist—this was a drunk and vulnerable Mayuzumi.

Kise stumbled to stand, eventually making it to the door, wrenching it open and expecting to see Mayuzumi around.

But he was gone.

Kise shivered at the cold of the night breeze, "Mayuzumicchi!" he tried, but after several seconds, no answer came.

He glanced back at the tattooist sleeping on his couch. This had not been a good idea, not one bit.

Kise pulled his phone out, blinking several times at the screen until he reached Mayuzumi's contact info. He called, but it went straight to voicemail.

He hoped Mayuzumi would be okay. He hoped Kuroko wouldn't feel too bad in the morning, both with the hangover and the fact that he just blurted out things he wasn't supposed to. He hoped Kasamatsu wouldn't take away his alcohol for this.

* * *

 **Guess who graduated college with a Bachelor's in English last month? Me! Lol that's why I took a break from this fic but now I'm back ! (And yet, if there are typos and stuff here, I still can't catch all of them lmao ) So, there's probably a few chapters left? Hopefully lol**

 **Thanks to everyone who's reading!**


	10. Chapter 10

Two months later, things weren't any better at _ShadowsX_.

After the night Kise, Kuroko, and Mayuzumi drank together and Mayuzumi ran off, they had assumed that he'd be fine. And he was.

Mostly.

He made it home in one piece, and he counted that as being fine even if they didn't.

But they didn't really fix things since then.

* * *

Kise sighed as he sat down on the couch, cuddling with Kasamatsu who was replying to an email on his phone. "Mayuzumicchi hasn't been replying much to me. I miss him." It had been two weeks since That Day and Mayuzumi barely replied to Kise's multiple texts.

Kasamatsu put an arm around him after he finished with the email, then put his phone away. "Well, I see your side but I also see his. You guys tried to set him up with someone against his will and when it all went wrong, and then basically pinned the fault with it and Akashi on him. Good intentions and all that." He kissed Kise's forehead. Kasamatsu lifted his other hand to place it on Kise's cheek, bringing their faces close enough so Kasamatsu could kiss his lips. Kise was so thankful for how sweet Kasamatsu was being with him right now; he was so _lucky_.

"Akashicchi was a good guy too, Kuroko told me he went through a lot of stress with his dad and the company." Kise leaned his head down on Kasamatsu's chest and he wrapped both of his arms around his middle.

"You remember the last time you tried to help set Mayuzumi up, right?"

Kise winced. It had been back when they first met and he thought Mayuzumi was in need of some love—specifically a relationship and so he'd set him up with another model he knew, Haizaki. Mayuzumi didn't even know that's what Kise had been trying to do, but the model thought it would go well.

It didn't go well.

It went horrible, actually, and Kise thought Mayuzumi would never talk to him again. But eventually he got over it and told Kise that he appreciated the help, but he didn't need or want it at the moment so if he could please stay out of his love life. Kise had immediately agreed and instead went about giving Mayuzumi as much platonic love as he could give him—and it made Mayuzumi happy.

The tattoo artist was surprisingly receptive and reciprocated a lot of the affection Kise sent his way and it worked out well for all of them. They got _matching tattoos_ ; it worked out _great_. Even Kasamatsu enjoyed Mayuzumi's company and the three became really close.

And Mayuzumi looked happy, so Kise swore he'd never interfere with his friend's love life again.

Until Akashi came in and even Kise thought they'd be a good match.

* * *

Kise spent one shoot last month (after Mayuzumi ignored him for three weeks straight) crying during most of it, but instead of cancelling the shoot, the photographer was blown away by how beautiful Kise looked when he was crying, both with his eyes filling with tears and the way they slowly spilled down his cheeks, that she centered the shoot around that. Critics and fans everywhere applauded Kise's pictures because they looked so _real_ , so _full of emotion_ that the model was able to properly convey.

They never thought Kise actually felt as heartbroken as he looked.

Kise had shown up at Mayuzumi's apartment directly after that shoot to ask that they talk things out. Mayuzumi tried to stay angry, but he couldn't when confronted by Kise's tears and instead they spent an hour with Mayuzumi making sure Kise understood that he hadn't appreciated what happened but that they were still best friends and he hoped Kise would never do that again. Eventually in the early hours of the morning, Mayuzumi was laying down on the couch with Kise sleeping on top of him, Mayuzumi's arm wrapped around Kise's waist to keep him from falling off. The tattoo artist lightly kissed the top of Kise's head and the model just smiled in his sleep. Mayuzumi sent a picture of Kise's sleeping face to Kasamatsu who replied —I'm glad you two are alright now— along with a text saying that Mayuzumi needed to come over their house so they could hang out like before. And also so he could give him some hell for putting Kise through all that. Mayuzumi readily agreed and Kasamatsu gave him hell for a couple hours before the three of them brought out the horror movies and all got together on the couch with Mayuzumi in the middle.

Kise was later interviewed about his teary photoshoot. He just gave his best smile and said he had wanted to try something new and he appreciated his fans loving it—there was no way he'd tell them the truth, they were likely to find out Mayuzumi was the cause of that heartbreak and track him down and kill him. He had some crazy fans, he had to admit. Besides, things were good now with them.

Mostly.

Kuroko on the other hand, prepared himself for misery every time he had to go into work. He and Mayuzumi still saw each other, albeit Mayuzumi did take a few days off after That Day before coming into work.

Those steely eyes of Mayuzumi's were harsher and colder towards him than they had ever been before; they rarely even looked at him and he only talked to him when Mayuzumi absolutely needed to.

Gone were the days of playful banter, the days where sometimes Mayuzumi would go out and come back with a vanilla shake for Kuroko who'd had a long day. Gone were the days where Mayuzumi would willingly talk to Kuroko—he didn't even accept his apology. Or his lemon cupcakes. That Kuroko personally baked. Which he never did because he was _terrible_ at baking (and cooking) but he tried _so hard_ on these and he was so happy when they finally came out good.

And yet, Mayuzumi left the bag of lemon cupcakes with vanilla icing sit on the counter for three days before Himuro had to take them into the trash because he was worried they'd rot and scare away the customers.

Kuroko had tried not to let that affect him, but honestly he missed his friend and it didn't matter how much he tried to apologize (he and Kise spent a whole day piecing together what had happened That Day because Kuroko blacked out and forgot everything but at least they tried) he felt bad.

Akashi hadn't even talked to him in the last couple months either. This all went so wrong. He just wanted his friends to be happy together, why was that so bad? Kuroko tried reaching out, sending simple texts and even just plain emojis. He'd tried sending some memes he liked but all he was met with was radio silence.

He made sure to keep an eye out on the news too in case anything happened with Akashi's company. Nothing. Stocks were doing good, no hints of a potential coup d'état, not even hints of merging companies. No news was good news, right?

"Kuroko, you doing ok?" Himuro asked, coming by to stand beside the tattoo artist who aimlessly spun around in his chair. "You're going to puke if you keep that up."

"Good, maybe then I'll have a good enough reason to go home and avoid everything."

"If this is about Mayuzumi's love life—"

"It's not."

Himuro frowned, reaching out to stop Kuroko's chair before he flung himself off it. They were lucky they didn't have any customers right now. Mayuzumi was out on his lunch break right now, so it was just the two of them. Kuroko winced, taking in a deep breath. He slowly let it out, looking pained to admit, "I miss him." The Kuroko from a year ago would've gagged and promptly thrown himself out of a window before admitting that but it was unfortunately true.

Mayuzumi wasn't ignoring Himuro completely but that cold shoulder he was giving Kuroko everywhere except when extremely necessary at work was brutal. He'd probably be impressed if it wasn't aimed at him.

They were honestly worried that Mayuzumi would just quit and work somewhere else and they didn't want that.

"I miss Akashi too. The last time I saw him he looked dead on his feet." Kuroko shook his head. "And that's my fault too, y'know?"

He tried to spin again his chair but Himuro kept a strong grip on it. Maybe he should bring in a stationary chair that wouldn't prove to be a little self-destructive for his friends. "Mayuzumi'll come around, he sees you almost every day. Akashi will be ok too, he's about to run a company, I'm sure he's just going to sort himself out first them come back ready for a tattoo."

Kuroko leaned his head back on the chair and stared blankly at the ceiling. "I wish I had your optimism."

Himuro patted his shoulder. "Incoming Mayuzumi." And then he was gone, disappearing off to the back room right before Mayuzumi opened the door to _ShadowsX_ , the bell never making a single sound.

Mayuzumi didn't bother looking in Kuroko's direction, merely keeping his eyes on his phone which he was tapping away on. He went to his station and ignored the way Kuroko's blue gaze felt, all heavy and sad and apologetic.

Kuroko sighed. He had a two o'clock coming in, for a serpent snaking its way up the skin's arm, and he had to get ready for it because he was still at work and had to be professional about it.

When Mayuzumi's next client came in, a cheerful redhead looking to put an owl on her thigh, Kuroko looked over at them. Mayuzumi was all smiles and sweet words as they talked about her tattoo and got her ready for it. He called her sweetheart and she blushed, giggling as he expertly drew his lines on her. The client apparently said something funny and Mayuzumi laughed, looking like everything was back to normal in that moment and Kuroko felt even more sad.

He turned around, focusing on his station and trying to keep a positive mind about his life right now.

He didn't know how long Mayuzumi could go on with this cold shoulder but Kuroko was going to have to confront him one way or another and apologize.

Mayuzumi's laugh, along with his client's, interrupted Kuroko's thoughts which caused him to finish setting up his station bitterly mere moments before the bell rang, announcing his next client.

* * *

It was a cold night. Winter was creeping in more and more and Akashi normally enjoyed it, but these days he wanted to get far away from the cold. He wrapped his red scarf a little tighter around his neck in hopes of staving off the chill air for a bit, mind wandering as he aimlessly walked around the city.

He used to enjoy coming on walks after work, either to run some errands before going back home or just to walk and see where the world took him. Today was one of the latter only he wasn't enjoying it. His thoughts were still back at work, wondering what he was doing _wrong_ because his father was currently winning their little standoff and he didn't seem to be any closer in taking the company out from under him.

Well, that was a bit of a lie. He had some underlings—coworkers, that had expressed being on his side and after thoroughly checking them, he was sure they wouldn't betray him. He even had a recent hire, Midorima Shintaro, who was extremely competent. Along with Takao Kazunari, the new pair were a formidable team, if a little bit of a weird duo. But Akashi could work with weird because he saw the results were all going in his favor and he was so close to his goal he could feel it. And there were others. His father would lose this little game of theirs.

How terrible was it to be an Akashi and be literally gambling an entire company on a little pissing match between father and son, the current head and future heir.

It was like he was starring in his own little drama.

He wondered what his mother would think if she could see him and his father now. She probably would've put his father in his place so that it wouldn't come to this. She might've taken his side but Akashi doubted it because he remembered how sweet and kind she was to him when he was little.

He sighed, pulling his phone out to check the time. 11:55. Almost midnight. Akashi should probably just head home now, since it didn't seem like he'd get any sleep tonight either way.

He didn't even know where he was. He just hoped he didn't get himself accidentally lost on the other side of the city like what happened last year.

So he raised his gaze, in time to turn a corner, to see where he was.

When he promptly walked right into someone.

"My bad, I wasn't—oh."

That voice.

Red eyes looked up and saw Chihiro, standing there in front of him, adjusting his scarf against the chilly wind, looking at him with those blank eyes of his.

Akashi didn't know what to say.

They stared at each other, unmoving. Red locked onto silver and they stood there, just a couple feet apart. The closest they've been in months.

Chihiro looked like he wanted to take a step forward, to bring them closer, but he hesitated at the last second, taking a step back instead. He turned around to walk away without a word.

"Wait," Akashi called out, surprising himself and Chihiro.

The tattoo artist froze, not looking back at him. But he waited for Akashi to continue.

"Can…" He took in a deep breath and slowly let it out. He was the heir to Akashi Industries. He was the man who would take that company out from under his father and get back his old life. He was the man that knew exactly what kind of tattoo he wanted, he just needed to find the time to do it. He was definitely the man who could talk to the other man he still had a crush on, about why the sudden radio silence, about what they could do now, if they were still friends. If they could be something more. "Can we talk?"

The ball was in Chihiro's court now; he had to decide what to do with it. He knew that if Chihiro decided never to talk to him again, he'd be in the right and Akashi would just have to honor that decision.

Chihiro slowly turned to look back at him. He eyed him a little as the night wore on, as the cars drove by in the street, as the chilly air became more frigid, as the moon peeked out from behind the clouds high up in the sky.

"Ok. Let's talk."

Half-passed midnight found Akashi and Chihiro in a nearby Starbucks that was the only coffee place still open. They wanted some neutral ground to talk things out. The barista flirted with Chihiro when he'd ordered his drink (a simple hot chocolate though Chihiro asked if there was any cayenne pepper lying around to add to it, which surprisingly there was) and practically ignored Akashi when he took his order (a venti strawberry açai no water). Chihiro had _no_ idea the guy was flirting with him, but he did smile at him, friendly despite the time of night. Akashi saw the guy at the counter scribble his number on Chihiro's receipt but the tattoo artist hadn't noticed, simply tossing the receipt in the trash after they got their drinks without even looking at it.

Akashi was surprised but at least the barista hadn't noticed Chihiro obliviousness.

After they got their drinks, they went to sit at a small table for two, the only patrons in the store right now.

Chihiro sipped at his hot chocolate, eyeing the man in front of him but neither saying a word.

Akashi looked like he'd seen better days. He had bags under his eyes, just barely noticeable, but they hadn't been there the last time Chihiro had seen him. Those red eyes of his had lost some of their vibrancy, the grace and powerful aura he'd carried before seemed to be barely hanging on. His suit still looked elegant and anyone could tell that he was a businessman just by looking at him but there was something off, he looked like something was weighing him down. Chihiro watched Akashi sip at the strawberry açai and thought he'd never get to sleep tonight if he finished that. All that caffeine from the green coffee extract was going to keep him going straight until morning.

There was a vulnerability at this time of night.

"How are you, Akashi?"

The redhead blinked, lifting his gaze from the table to the man before him. "I'm okay."

"Really?"

Akashi sipped more of his strawberry açai. "I've been better." He chewed on the end of his straw, something Mayuzumi didn't expect him to do. It made him look cute. He licked his lips and stared unwaveringly into silver eyes. "Chihiro, I want to apologize to you."

Chihiro didn't say anything. He took a sip of his hot chocolate.

Akashi figured Chihiro was waiting for him to continue, so he did. "I was having problems with," he took a breath and tried again, "I should've explained why I stopped coming by and stopped talking to you. You weren't at fault."

Chihiro raised a brow, waiting for him to continue.

"I was having troubles with the company, my father-" he grimaced, "-blackmailed me in order to prevent me from entering your shop, and essentially stop seeing you." Akashi unconsciously started playing with his fingers and stopped when he finally noticed. "I shouldn't have listened to him, I should've done something else but I didn't mean to just drop you like that. I miss you and Tetsuya and the store."

Chihiro sighed into his hot chocolate, eyes staring at the rim of his cup. He raised his gaze, "When you said you were going to apologize, I thought you meant about you and Kuroko trying to set me up with you."

Akashi's heart stopped for a moment, eyes widening a little. "What?"

"I'm not mad about it, not anymore. Not really." He took a sip. "But clearly there's no communication going on here because I didn't know there was some shit going in the background." He put down his hot chocolate. "You could've told me what was going on, I would've understood. You didn't have drop me out of nowhere like that."

"I'm sorry, I—"

"Let me finish?" Chihiro politely cut in, waiting for Akashi to give him the okay. Finally the redhead nodded, and Chihiro continued.

"I think you can tell that I don't have many friends, and I'm alright with that, I don't think I need them." He played with the handle on his cup, eyes lowering to it. "I was happy when I met you, you and I had a good dynamic."

Akashi's heart was breaking a little, but he let Chihiro speak.

"I thought I did something wrong when you stopped coming by, and when you stopped replying to me. I knew you were still talking to Kuroko, but you just stopped communicating with me." Chihiro looked up at him. "I assumed that you were just busy because you own a company so of course you would be and I completely understand that, we are all adults after all, but then Kuroko told me about trying to set us up. Here I thought we were friends when this whole time you two had been planning for something more. I've been giving him the cold shoulder for a couple months now and I hate it but I can't bring myself to just sweep it all under the rug. He said it was my fault you were gone. I don't have a lot of friends, Akashi, I don't like losing the few that I do have."

Akashi opened his mouth to speak but decided against it. He would let Chihiro finish, even if it hurt.

"And this isn't all his fault either. And I hate that I'm preaching about communicating while I'm doing just the opposite with him. It's hurting him but," he shook his head, "But I don't like people interfering in my love life. It makes me very uncomfortable. I don't like losing friends because of that either. And I do like you, I like you a lot, but I'm not sure I want us to be 'us,' at least not right now." Chihiro looked away from those red eyes that were going through one emotion after another and he looked so unsure about things; Akashi didn't like that uncertainty on him.

But he liked _him_. And Chihiro said he liked him too.

"Chihiro, I'm so sorry." He finally said, tilting his head until he caught Chihiro's eyes again, drawing them back up. "I— _we_ , never meant for things to get like this. I really did go to your shop the first time because I was curious about getting a tattoo. And I will get one. Tetsuya didn't mean any harm—"

"I know he didn't."

"But you're right. We should've all communicated better and we didn't."

"It's ok. We live and learn. And I can't be sitting here giving you crap when I'm doing it to Kuroko."

"I should've done something or said something. I didn't expect my father to bring up this mess. Things were going so well; I was so interested in you." Those red eyes got back a little bit of the spark Chihiro remembered seeing in them. "I still am, but I will respect what you want to do, or not do."

Chihiro looked away from those scarlet eyes; his hot chocolate was almost gone at this point. "I think that's a conversation for another day. I think you have plenty on your plate without adding this serving."

"Can we go back to the way things were before?"

Chihiro took in a deep breath, slowly letting it out. He hadn't expected to have this kind of conversation tonight. He didn't even think he'd see Akashi either. He was just wandering around the city, hoping to find something to do so he could avoid sleeping. This was definitely keeping him up now. "I don't think we can."

Akashi swallowed, nodding slowly.

"I don't mean that we can't be friends anymore, this all got so serious so quickly, but dynamics change and I think ours did too." Chihiro shrugged. "I do miss you though. And it breaks my heart that I'm hurting Kuroko. I wouldn't be surprised if I tried to apologize to him now and he'd deck me. And that you're hurting because of all this."

"Are you hurting too?"

"I'll be ok."

Akashi hesitated to reach across the small table for one of Chihiro's hands which had started to fidget. Seems they had that in common. But he let himself do it, and Chihiro didn't pull his hand out from under Akashi's. "I am sorry, Chihiro. I came in and disrupted your life."

"I forgive you. I like having you in my life."

Akashi squeezed Chihiro's hand. "Thank you for accepting me back into it."

Chihiro moved his hand so that his fingers intertwined with Akashi's. "You'll talk to me again?"

"Yes. I can't promise I'll be consistent as I am in the middle of a hostile takeover against my father, but I'll try."

"And I understand that. Completely. Also, a hostile takeover?"

"Keep an eye out on the news."

Chihiro finally pulled away his hand after one last squeeze. "This was a good night. I was worried I'd drink myself stupid while bar hopping but this turned out so much better than I thought."

Akashi nodded. "I was just wandering around the city. I'm glad I got to see you." He checked his watch. "It's past two in the morning, we should probably go home."

Chihiro finished the last sip of his hot chocolate as he watched Akashi finish his strawberry açai. "You're going to be up all night because of that."

"I know. That's why I got it."

Chihiro shook his head. "Anyway, I have somewhere to go before going home."

"Tetsuya might kill you if you show up at his house unannounced at this time of night."

"He's already gonna off me for giving him the cold shoulder, why not give him another motive?"

"I hope you two patch things up."

"Me too."

They walked out of Starbucks, the barista sighing sadly after having been watching them from afar. They looked like they were in love, he thought the taller one was attractive but it seemed his heart was already with someone else. He wished them the best.

They each called a taxi and parted on friendly terms.

Akashi barely waited until he put on his seatbelt after telling the taxi driver where to go, when he pulled out his phone.

 _Goodnight, Chihiro_ , he texted.

 _Goodnight Akashi,_ Mayuzumi replied.

* * *

Mayuzumi stood outside Kuroko's apartment door, shivering. The night air at nearing three a.m. was frigid as fuck now that they were deeper in winter and that hot chocolate only kept him warm for so long.

Kuroko was probably going to kill him, if he ever decided to ring the doorbell.

Mayuzumi rung the bell.

There, he signed his death wish. This was where he met his demise.

He rung it again.

Just to make sure Kuroko would make his death quick and painless.

The door opened a few moments later, and a sleepy, angry Kuroko appeared. He looked like he was a second away from bitching out whoever was at his door but his eyes widened when he saw who it was, all anger suddenly disappearing off his face.

He stood there, behind the door, in his big t-shirt that made him look even smaller than he—wait a minute that was one of Mayuzumi's shirts he'd thought he lost like last year. He left it at Kuroko's _no wonder_ he never found it.

"Kuro—"

He didn't even finish when Kuroko threw himself at him, hugging him tightly.

" _Mayu_."

Mayuzumi stood frozen for a moment before he wrapped his arms around Kuroko too, both showing a rare display of affection to each other.

"I'm sorry I never ate your lemon cupcakes, I'm sure they were delicious and I didn't deserve them and if you ever make them again I would worship the ground you walk on."

Kuroko pulled back in his hug just enough to punch him in the arm. Mayuzumi chuckled. But then Kuroko pulled Mayuzumi inside the apartment and hugged him again after he closed the door, burying his face into Mayuzumi's chest.

Both knew whatever they said right here at this moment wouldn't leave Kuroko's apartment.

"I'm sorry I didn't put your feelings into consideration. I should've known better."

"I'm sorry I ignored you for so long, I should've just talked to you."

"I'm sorry I kissed you."

"Are you?"

Kuroko punched him again. Mayuzumi only laughed again. "I'm sorry I caused you both so much trouble."

"You didn't. We can pin most of this bullshit on Akashi's dad."

"True but still."

Mayuzumi pulled back just a bit to look down at the blue bedhead. "I'm sorry I woke you up before the ass crack of dawn when I could've waited till work started in a few hours."

"No you're not."

"You're right I'm not. I thought you were going to kill me."

"I still might."

"You're wearing my shirt."

"Shut up, I missed you."

"I missed you too."

They parted slowly again, Kuroko for once looking soft and warm and those blue eyes of his looked a little watery (but that could've just been from recently waking up) and Mayuzumi watched him bite his lip and look away. "The guest bed isn't made and there's stuff all over the couch…" he trailed off and Mayuzumi smirked.

"You're trying to get me into your bed."

Kuroko punched him in the same spot on his arm again. Mayuzumi was going to have a bruise there.

Mayuzumi eventually borrowed Kuroko's biggest pajamas and joined Kuroko in bed, knowing they'd both have to get up in a few hours—Mayuzumi even earlier because he needed to go home and change clothes first.

But for now, with this one night off the record, they let themselves change their dynamic, just for tonight.

"I'll buy you all the vanilla shakes you want," Mayuzumi murmured after a yawn.

Kuroko turned over so they faced each other. He could feel sleep taking a hold of him. "You don't have to," he whispered.

"I want to. I hurt you. I'm sorry."

Kuroko, in a rare moment of shyness and affection, reached a hand out to touch Mayuzumi's. "I forgive you." He hesitated as they both started losing the fight against sleep. "We're ok?"

Mayuzumi held his hand. "We're ok."


	11. Chapter 11

"Mayuzumicchi!" A cheerful voice called over the bell ringing above the open door. "I haven't seen you in ages!"

Mayuzumi, who sat behind the counter, didn't look up from what he was working on. "You saw me two weeks ago," he paused, "I swear this has already happened."

The gorgeous model thought for a bit, "Probably." He came over to peer at what Mayuzumi was drawing, but the tattoo artist shielded the picture from Kise's sight. Kise pouted. "Why can't I see?"

Mayuzumi easily slipped the paper into the gray binder on the counter without letting Kise even see a peek of it. "Because I'm drawing out ideas for Akashi." He patted the empty space on the counter for Kise to come sit and the model wasted no time in doing so.

Mayuzumi moved in the chair so that he was settled between Kise's legs, making sure to be just out of harm's way from Kise's kicking, and he smiled up at him.

The only thing Kise was missing right now was a wagging tail to show his excitement. "He's really doing it? He's getting a tattoo?"

Mayuzumi nodded as he stretched. "Said it was finally time, especially after the news that came out last week. He's coming in later today so we can start hashing out some possibilities of what the final tattoo will look like."

"That was big news," Kise thought on it. "I'm so excited to see what he's gonna get!" Kise wiggled around in his seat. "I'm glad he's still letting you do the tattoo."

Mayuzumi kept that smile on his face. "Things are good between us, I told him I could refer him to Nijimura, one of the best I know, but he was adamant on me tattooing him."

Kise nodded. He reached forward and gently carded his fingers through silver hair. "I'm glad you two are ok now."

Mayuzumi leaned into the touch. "Me too. Things are going great, with everything." He settled his hand on top of Kise's.

"Homewrecker Mayu strikes again," came Kuroko's voice as he walked into ShadowsX without the bell making a sound.

"All you had to do was say you were jealous Kuroko, you don't need to go through all this drama." Mayuzumi smirked. "You know I love you."

"Ugh."

As Kuroko walked forward, a familiar redhead showed up behind him.

"Akashi," Mayuzumi greeted. "Ready?"

Akashi gave a small wave. He came from work, still in his business suit but with the jacket off, and the shirt rolled up to his elbows. Truthfully, he was a little worried about the pain and the actual healing process but there was no backing out now. He nodded. "Ready."

* * *

-Are you sober?- Damn, Kuroko acted like Mayuzumi constantly drank himself into a coma.

-? Yeah? Why?- It was like nine at night, why would he even be drunk so early?

-Check the news!-

-? Which one?-

-Any of them!-

Mayuzumi sighed and hunted around the living room for the remote, finding it underneath a throw pillow.

He channel-surfed until he got to a local news channel.

"-Akashi Industries now has a new president, the son of the previous president, Akashi Seijurou," the newscaster said, bright eyes full of excitement at telling the news. "For those who don't know, Akashi Industries is the nation's leading company in pharmaceuticals and renewable energy, the most profitable company in the country and its stocks have only gone up since the change in leadership. The previous head of the company will not be acting as an advisor according to statements made by sources from the inside. All executive power has gone to Akashi Seijurou. A press conference is set for tomorrow where the new president will relay the details of the shift in power."

The screen changed from showing the newscaster to showing the current stocks Akashi Industries had. Except for a tiny blip downward, the stocks are steadily rising.

"Damn," Mayuzumi breathed out. He took out his phone to shoot Kuroko a text with a bunch of surprised emojis but just before he pressed send, the screen showed Akashi's incoming call as it vibrated.

They had spoken a few times since last month which was that night at Starbucks and had met up once at ShadowsX and once outside of the shop, but Mayuzumi was still a little apprehensive.

Or, shy.

They both kind of confessed to each other, but neither had taken a step further from that.

The first time they met after that night Mayuzumi noticed how fixated Akashi's stare was on his mouth. The tattoo artist decided to be nice and showed him his piercing.

Akashi's red eyes wouldn't leave the piercing in his tongue and a tiny part of Mayuzumi's brain really liked that Akashi liked his piercing.

Maybe one day they could—

"You have a tongue piercing."

"I do."

"It's new right?"

"Yep." Mayuzumi smirked at him and Akashi flushed under the attention. "Is it something you like?"

"Yes."

His immediate response made it Mayuzumi's turn to flush.

God, how did people do this?

Mayuzumi muted the TV and answered the call. "Hello?"

"Chihiro," Akashi sounded relieved. "Did I catch you at a bad time?"

Mayuzumi blinked. "What, no. I should be asking you that. I just saw the news, are you ok?"

Akashi took in a deep breath and slowly let it out. "Mostly."

"Well—"

"Can I come over?"

"Now?"

"Are you home? Is this too sudden? I'm sorry, I don't want to impose—"

"Akashi," Mayuzumi gently cut in, "Yes, I'm home, yes, you can come over."

Akashi was quiet on the other end until— "Thank you, I'll be there in about five minutes?"

He didn't live five minutes away. Probably meant he was walking in the area or he had already headed here, hoping Mayuzumi would say yes. "Okay, see you then."

Mayuzumi hung up and did a quick sweep of his apartment. It wasn't the messiest apartment and he cleaned it a few days ago so it was still pretty presentable. It would be fine because he has no problem inviting over the head of a multi-million dollar company into his apartment.

If Akashi was stressed before there was no telling how much he would be now. Maybe some of that stress had to deal with his father but now, he's got the whole company to worry about.

The tattoo artist decided that in times of stress, the answer was to bring out the hot chocolate.

When the doorbell rang, Mayuzumi opened the door expecting to see Akashi looking like he had during that night at Starbucks, with dark circles under his eyes and the look of someone who hadn't had proper sleep in months due to the looming weight of the incoming coup. And he was sort of right because Akashi wore his stress on his sleeve but it wasn't to the level that it was before.

Akashi smiled at him, but it looked hesitant. "Chihiro, you would tell me if I was imposing, right?"

Mayuzumi rolled his eyes as he stepped to the side to let him in. "You're not bothering me and yes I would tell you if you were so relax."

Akashi made his way to the couch looking marginally less hesitant and after taking off his suit jacket, he dropped down onto the couch with a tired sigh.

A mug of hot chocolate (sprinkled with cayenne pepper) appeared in his direct line of sight and a grateful look spread across the redhead's face.

"You're a godsend."

"Nah, just know that it's always a good time for hot chocolate." Either hot chocolate or alcohol, it was never a bad time for either. He just realized he'd yet to see a drunk Akashi. He'd have to see if they could all go bar hopping in the future with Kise, it could be fun. Mayuzumi sat beside him with his own mug and eyed the way Akashi was fidgeting in his seat while he drank.

"Akashi," the redhead's attention snapped to him. "Are you gonna be ok?" Because he was _so_ not equipped to handle an emotional breakdown, but he'd have to try if Akashi suddenly burst into tears in front of him.

But he didn't. He didn't even speak. He opened his mouth, closed it, then opened it again but all he managed was a slight nod.

Mayuzumi sighed and stood up. "I'll be right back."

Akashi watched him leave, holding his mug tightly, curiously looking around the apartment because this is the first time he's been here and actually stayed longer than just dropping off a drunk Mayuzumi. It was generally neat and there were lots of books everywhere as he expected. It was small but perfect honestly.

A tiny part of Akashi-which wasn't in the midst of a borderline stress-induced panic attack-wondered if he would be able to spend more time here in the future.

Oh God. Here he was, post successful coup, just hours after it happened, and the ink hadn't even been dry on the paper before Akashi wanted to come here. What was he doing here instead his own home? He had a press conference tomorrow evening and here he was getting all chummy with Mayuzumi. This was a bad idea. He should just panic at home because, yes, all is said and done, but he just took over a company he didn't expect for another decade at least and now he was dicking around as the stress started to get to him even more and this was going to be his life for the rest of it until he found another heir and—

A warm blanket draped itself over Akashi, startling him. It was Mayuzumi of course, who settled the blanket while mindful of Akashi's hot chocolate.

"Are you staying the night?"

Akashi looked down at his half-full hot chocolate. "I figured I'd go home later tonight, if I'm not keeping you up."

Mayuzumi sighed, taking his seat beside Akashi again. "You're not keeping me up and I'd rather you just stay here, you walked right?"

"How did you know?"

"Just had a feeling." Mayuzumi checked his phone to see he had some texts from Kuroko and Kise but he'd reply to those later. "Don't want you being by yourself like this or at this time of night."

"I can handle myself," Akashi immediately assured before taking a sip.

"I have no doubt, but it looks like you're one moment away from snapping so I just want you to be ok."

"I will be."

They sat in a comfortable silence for a while, until both had finished their drinks and Mayuzumi took the mugs to the sink to wash later. He brought some pajamas over for Akashi who changed in the bathroom after asking twice if it was ok to spend the night.

"You can take the bed," he offered once Akashi stepped out of the bathroom holding his work clothes in his hands. The shirt Mayuzumi lent him was a little big on him, since his shoulders were a little broader, but he looked comfortable, looked more like he'd be able to sleep for hours.

"No, the couch is fine for me."

"You need the bed more than I do." It was a two bedroom apartment but because Mayuzumi never had company sleepover and he loved books, the guest room was more of his own personal library with the comfiest chairs ever but no bed.

"It's your home."

"Which is why you should listen to me and take the bed."

Akashi sat next to him on the couch. "I'm not going to win this one, am I?"

"Nope."

Akashi looked at him, red eyes searching. "I'm glad you let me back into your life."

"Oh my god," Mayuzumi shifted in his seat until he turned his body so he was facing him, "You just took over your own company in a coup and you're thinking about me?"

"I'm always thinking about you."

His frankness caused a deep blush to spread across Mayuzumi's startled face. It was really cute, actually. He put a hand on his face and slowly brought it down in hopes that it would hide the blush. This guy was unreal sometimes. Most times. "You're ridiculous." There was no bite in his words and Akashi smiled.

"When are you getting a tattoo?"

Akashi had no qualms about staring right into gray eyes for extended periods of time. It was a friendly gaze, if a little unnerving. "I actually think I might take a day off work soon and come in to start it."

Mayuzumi perked up. "Really?"

"Yes."

"Do you have any ideas of what you want and where?"

Akashi nodded. "A couple," he paused, "I was thinking of either my shoulder or back? Not quite sure yet."

Mayuzumi hummed. "Are you thinking of something big?"

Red eyes shied away from gray. "Possibly."

A smirk graced Mayuzumi's face, blush long forgotten. "Sounds like fun."

"Sounds like it'll be painful and more than one session."

"It could be." Mayuzumi nodded, never one to lie to people considering a tattoo. "Something you gotta think about, or you'll be like me and have an unfinished sleeve and be too lazy to go in and get it done."

"True."

"So, I was thinking of recommending you to Nijimura Shuzo, he's great and—"

"Wait, you're not going to be the one doing it?"

Mayuzumi looked hesitant. "I wasn't sure if you'd still want me to do it. With what's happened lately and," he waved his hand around in a circular motion as if trying to sum up the mess of the last few months in one gesture. "I just didn't want you to think I was your only option. Plus there's Kuroko too."

"I've seen your work, I would prefer it if you did my first tattoo but if that makes you uncomfortable—"

"It doesn't, I just want to make sure you're ok with it."

"I am."

"Well then, that settles that. What are your ideas?"

They talked for about half an hour, Akashi throwing ideas around and Mayuzumi offering input when he could. Akashi was torn between two large tattoos, but either it would be one across his lower stomach that went up towards his shoulder or it would be one that covered his shoulder and wrapped around to the front of his chest.

"I think I know what I want now."

"It's gonna look great."

By the time Akashi yawned it was starting to get late, just past midnight and he had a press conference to do tomorrow so he needed to rest. Somewhere during their talk the two of them had gotten a little closer on the couch, with their knees touching while facing each other. Akashi did end up sleeping on the couch because he never made it to the bed, falling asleep during a lull in the conversation.

Mayuzumi yawned and considered just sleeping in his own bed but after he shifted the blanket so it covered Akashi better, he said fuck it and made himself comfortable on the couch and fell asleep moments later.

In the morning when Akashi woke up first, he was surprised to find himself leaning on Mayuzumi, the two of them partially laying down with Akashi's head on Mayzumi's chest. The blanket was still mostly draped over him but some of it was on Mayuzumi too. He looked at peace right now, and Akashi felt very fortunate to see him like this.

It turned out he only slept six hours but it was the best sleep he'd gotten in a long time.

* * *

"You guys are so secretive about the tattoo," Kuroko commented as he took up the Mayuzumi's empty seat behind the counter once Kise had gone to the couch to text Kasamatsu. Kuroko came prepared with a vanilla shake as he slowly spun around in the chair. Himuro hadn't been successful in replacing it yet.

Speaking of, Himuro walked in through the front door at that moment with a treat bag from Murasakibara; ShadowsX was a lawless land.

"Hey if my skin doesn't want to show you until the final product then who am I to challenge him," Mayuzumi shrugged nonchalantly as he set up his station while Akashi took off his shirt.

"My friend," Kuroko blurted out a moment before he froze, eyes wide as he slowly turned to face Mayuzumi who was also frozen and nearly dropped the container of red ink he was holding, looking at Kuroko in surprise. Kise was grinning at them from the couch, snapping pictures of their faces and sending them to Kasamatsu with "Just admitted they're friends, aren't they adorable" as the caption.

"I didn't mean that," Kuroko immediately backtracked. He spun in the chair so as to give Mayuzumi his back as the taller man started smirking.

"Oh yes you did, you finally balanced out your tsun and your dere."

"Never."

"You love me."

"I hate you."

Himuro smiled at Akashi, "Hi there, Akashi, welcome to ShadowsX where the bosses are literal children."

Akashi chuckled, settling on the comfortable chair in Mayuzumi's station. "I think their friendship is incredibly entertaining."

Kuroko and Mayuzumi blushed a bit, stopping their banter.

"I'm so proud of you two," Kise wiped away at imaginary tears and ducked when Kuroko threw a panda plushie from the counter at him. "I've got to go to a shoot now, good luck Akashicchi! You guys have fun!"

Everyone waved at the model puppy as they left and Kuroko and Mayuzumi wondered if they'd see pictures of themselves on his social media later.

Mayuzumi finished setting up his array of colors and walked over to the door to close it. Akashi had wanted his tattoo to be a surprise until the end and Mayuzumi would grant him that.

"I'm nervous," Akashi admitted once Mayuzumi put on his gloves and settled in the chair in front of him, machine in his hands. They spent the last twenty minutes finalizing the design so Mayuzumi would have the stencil already perfected. Freehanding tattoos was something he was good at, but in this case he wanted to make sure Akashi felt as secure with the design as possible.

"That's normal," Mayuzumi conceded. "I'll do my best to make this as comfortable for you as possible," within reason of course, since he was still going to take a needle to Akashi's skin and force ink into it and yeah, he'd probably feel a slight stinging sensation. Plus all the bleeding that will happen. "We can stop whenever you want."

Akashi took in a few breaths to steady himself, hands tensed into fists. He watched the tattoo artist transfer the stencil.

"I'm gonna need you to relax," gray locked with red, "it's gonna be ok, I've got you." Mayuzumi picked up the machine.

"You're a different person at work."

"I'll take that as a compliment."

"It was meant as one."

Mayuzumi shook his head with a small smile and readied himself, hand holding the machine just an inch away from Akashi's skin.

And just as Akashi took in a deep breath, Mayuzumi started.

It… didn't hurt. Not really.

Sure, it was definitely obvious that something was happening on his skin, that something kept jabbing into him, but it almost felt like a light stinging sensation streaking across his skin rather than some unbearable pain of a needle going into him like he expected. Maybe it was just the area right now. And maybe because all Mayuzumi was doing today were the lines, since he'd save the coloring and shading for the next session.

"Doing ok?" Mayuzumi asked, eyes never leaving the area he was working on.

Akashi nodded, then froze because he didn't want to make him mess up. "It's a little bad, but not as bad as I thought it would be."

"Good, good, everyone is different." Mayuzumi wiped away the excess ink and the small pinpricks of blood that had started showing up. "Don't forget this session will go for at least two hours, so keep up that positive mindset. We can take a break whenever you need one."

Akashi gave a shaky sigh, wincing a little when Mayuzumi moved to a different spot on him, the needle still dragging black across his skin. He wouldn't be switching colors for a while and he hoped he'd have enough stamina to deal with this semi-pain for a couple more hours. He hoped it wouldn't get too much worse the longer this session went on.

Mayuzumi chuckled without a hint of malice. "You're doing better than Kuroko at least, just distract yourself, or talk to me about anything."

Akashi thought for a bit, genuinely getting a little lost in those focused steel gray eyes that didn't notice his staring. "Can you tell me about the time you and Ryota got matching tattoos?"

"Sure. It involved a lot of alcohol..."

* * *

"You're late," were the first words Kuroko said when he opened the door to reveal Mayuzumi on the other side.

"Yeah, yeah, I was in the middle of a good chapter, I couldn't just stop reading the book." Mayuzumi walked into his apartment delivering a surprise vanilla shake. "Besides, last week you forgot because you were out with Shigehiro going food truck hopping."

Kuroko stuck his tongue out at him as he took the shake and closed the door behind him. "These won't get you off every time."

"Yes they will."

Yes they would.

Lately they had been doing movie marathons nearly every other week, sometimes consecutive weeks if something would come up for the following one and they alternated homes each time; today it was Kuroko's place. They both loved books but they couldn't do something like a mini book club because they had completely opposite tastes in books and the last time they tried that they had nearly come to blows. It was hilarious in hindsight. So movies it was, and this time it was Mayuzumi's turn to pick.

And he brought some horror movies.

Kuroko narrowed his eyes when he saw the titles in Mayuzumi's hands. "Absolutely not."

"Oh come on, they're not even that scary," he pulled one of them out, "this one is more funny than scary."

"If I have nightmares, I'm keeping you up with me."

"Yeah, yeah."

Kuroko just wanted an excuse to sleep with him again. Not that he would ever admit it. Mayuzumi liked this side that Kuroko was now more willing to show. It was cute. But he'd be damned if Kuroko found out.

So it looked like they were at this stalemate in their friendship where they didn't want to come off as caring _too_ much. Being close friends like this was so much _work_.

In the end they got through three movies; Kuroko spent most of them hiding behind the throw pillow he held in a death grip in front of him, or behind Mayuzumi who was enjoying himself.

"You tell anyone about this—" Kuroko began, from behind Mayuzumi.

"Endless suffering, horrible death, no one will find my body, blah blah blah," Mayuzumi replied, without taking his eyes off the screen. He glanced back at Kuroko because he could practically feel him pouting and he laughed when he was right.  
When the end credits rolled, Kuroko spoke up, face covered with his pillow. "Is it over?"

"Yeah."

"I hate you."

"I know."

"I mean it."

"I believe you."

Kuroko threw the pillow at him.

"Come on scaredy-cat." Mayuzumi stood up from the couch and held a hand out for Kuroko to take and he narrowed his eyes when he saw Mayuzumi smile at him.

"You're enjoying this."

"Hey, I'm not the sadist here."

Eventually they settled in Kuroko's room, Mayuzumi on the floor in Kuroko's spare futon. He would've taken the guest bedroom but Kuroko was all kinds of jumpy so it was best to just stick around (and secretly laugh at his inevitable nightmares).

It was closing on three in the morning when Mayuzumi, who was sleeping peacefully, was woken up by something shifting beside him. He took in a deep, startled breath and opened his eyes only to groan upon seeing Kuroko trying to curl into him over the blanket.

"Really Kuroko?" Mayuzumi lightly shoved at him to get him to wake fully. "At least let's use the bed."

Kuroko didn't say anything but followed Mayuzumi close, the taller of the two covering them with the blanket on the bed. Kuroko wasted no time in curling into Mayuzumi's side.

"You tell anyone about this," Kuroko murmured, voice thick with sleep.

"Shut up and go to sleep."

* * *

"Mayuzumicchi! Kurokocchi! Himurocchi! Is Himurocchi here?" Kise exclaimed upon bursting into ShadowsX.  
"Himuro's never here because the author always forgets about him," Mayuzumi replied, looking up from cleaning his station at the tall blond puppy nearly bursting at the seams with excitement.

Kuroko rolled his eyes. "What have we said about trying to break a nonexistent fourth wall?"

"Suck my dick, Kuroko."

Kise laughed as he walked over to them. "It's so nice having you two be open about your feelings now."

Both Kuroko and Mayuzumi gagged simultaneously.

"Anyway," Kuroko cleared his throat, looking up at Kise from the counter. "What's got you so happy?"

"Yeah, you're literally walking sunshine right now," Mayuzumi commented as he joined them at the counter.

Kise kept his huge grin on his face. "You guys aren't gonna believe it." He pulled out his phone and waved it around happily.

The tattoo artists looked at him expectantly. With Kise, they just couldn't begin to guess what was going on his life. Nothing was too wild for him, nor too tame. He was an enigma, and he didn't even know it.

And he never would, if Kuroko and Mayuzumi had a say about it.

"Yukio finally did a photoshoot with me!"

Mayuzumi's jaw dropped. "How did you convince him? You've been trying for years." Yukio had always been so adamant on staying away from Kise's modeling life because he was happy as the police officer that he was.

"Hehe," Kise looked smug as he continued to wave his phone around. "He was definitely a tough cookie to crack but I did it, you guys wanna see the pictures I have?"

"Yes," the two chorused immediately, gathering around him with Kise in between them to look at his phone. They saw him unlock his phone with his thumbprint and the first thing they saw was a picture of Kise hugging Yukio from behind, Kise with a radiant smile and Yukio looking embarrassed. One picture had Yukio reaching up to brush Kise's bangs away from his eye since it was bothering him, but it was so nice that the photographer snapped it. Kise looked so startled but so in love in that picture.

Yukio had been extremely nervous at first, so much so that he nearly walked right out of the shoot before it even started but Kise took his hand and pleaded with him, this is something he had always wanted them to do together, and he understood how much Yukio didn't like it but maybe just a couple pictures, and as soon as he had had enough, they would walk out together and go out to a fancy dinner before going home.

"Please Yukio?" Kise begged, his hands holding both of Yukio's.

He sighed tiredly. "The things I do for you." Dark blue eyes looked into bright gold ones. "This is a one-time thing." He held up a finger for emphasis. "Once."

Kise nodded over and over again with a huge grin on his face. "You won't regret this!"

Yukio snorted. "Too late."

But as nervous as he was, it didn't show in the pictures.

"Focus on me," Kise told him, holding his gaze in front of the camera. "Only on me."

And Yukio did. They did a few pictures of just the two of them and Yukio forgot fairly quickly about the cameras and all the people watching. They moved onto sets for another, one group of pictures in particular had Kise sitting up on a counter with Yukio standing between his legs, his hands resting on Kise's thighs, Yukio leaning forward as if to kiss Kise but teasing him at the last second and pulling back. Kise, the normally calm and collected model, was sporting a lovely blush across his cheeks as his eyes saw nothing more than Yukio becoming more and more confident as the shoot went on.

Apparently this shoot went on for a long time because they had a few pictures in a shower setting, one where a naked (from at least the waist up) Yukio was behind the glass door, underneath the showerhead, the glass mostly fogged up so only his silhouette was visible. Kise leaned against that door, facing the camera with his back to Yukio, a dark blush on his face. Yukio's smirk was visible in a couple shots.

Mayuzumi whistled as Kise swiped to the next picture. Kuroko elbowed him in the stomach.

There was one picture where Kasamatsu was reading a book and Kise took up the main focus of the picture, with such a terribly fond expression on his face so full of love while Kasamatsu doesn't even notice. The pictured was mirrored by another one where Kise is looking something up on his phone, all excitedly, only to miss the love that was in Kasamatsu's eyes as he watched him.

And there were lots and lots more pictures.

"He looks so relaxed," Mayuzumi commented, "You guys look amazing together."

Kise grinned. "He was and thank you. They're only going to be using a few pictures for the issue, but they let me keep all of them."

Kuroko smiled at seeing his friends so happy. "Your fans are gonna lose it."

Kise nodded, grin never leaving his face. It was so cute seeing him like this. "I hope it's the good kind."

He had texted Aomine earlier a couple of the pictures and had gotten a response about how cute they were and congratulations on getting Kasamatsu to agree to the shoot. Kise asked him how things were going with Kagami and he got a single image in response where Kagami was sleeping, curled up on Aomine's chest. Kise sent back a tons of super happy emojis.

Mayuzumi reached up and ruffled Kise's hair. "I'm proud of you guys, and I'm proud of you for convincing him to achieve your lifelong goal."

"Yup! Now I need a new one!"

Mayuzumi pulled out his phone and texted Kasamatsu to congratulate him on the shoot. He got a reply almost instantly, asking him if he wanted to go out drinking with him tonight because he's been dying of embarrassment since the shoot ended. Mayuzumi asked if Kise was going to drink too and Kasamatsu replied that he had already stocked up their alcohol.

-Awesome,- he replied, -then I'm ready for death.-

He and Kise were a lucky duo, to have friends that cared so much for them, supportive families, people in their lives that just wanted them to be happy, stable jobs, and happiness, even if it wasn't always so easy to get there.

Mayuzumi was happy being Kise's friend and sharing their luck together.

That's also why their matching tattoos ended up being so perfect for them. Located on the inside of their right ankles, were tiny matching four-leaf clover tattoos, hardly bigger than a nickel. They were a light green that turned into a darker green as it went out into the edges, with a tiny curled stem at the bottom. There were tiny details in a black, shading and the individual lines on each leaf.

And they matched their owners so well.

* * *

"Is it done yet?" Kuroko asked from outside the closed door to Mayuzumi's station.

"Do you still hear my tattoo machine?"

"Yes?"

"Then no it's not done yet, go away," he replied with a shake of his head.

Akashi laughed but quickly became a wince. "Tetsuya's so excited."

"Kuroko needs to chill out." Steel gray eyes looked into red ones as he halted, "You doing alright?"

Akashi nodded slowly. "It's a lot more intense than the first session was," he admitted.

Mayuzumi nodded and he continued. "Yeah it'll be tender for a bit, especially since it's still so new and you're adding more and more to it instead of letting it heal for a long time."

"It'll be ok?"

"It'll be just fine. Gonna itch like hell but you'll be fine."

Akashi slowly let out a breath. "I can't wait to show my father."

Mayuzumi snorted, pulling his hand away from the tattoo. "Does he know about it at all?"

"I never told him, I wanted it all to be done before I showed him." Akashi clenched and unclenched a fist as Mayuzumi continued on the shading since this was their third and final session.

"Have you two talked at all since the takeover?"

"No, the last time I saw him was when we were signing all the documents for the takeover."

"Sounds harsh."

Akashi would've shrugged but he couldn't because of the tattoo. And because he was too tense at the moment. "It's the man I was raised to be."

Mayuzumi looked up at him, waiting for Akashi to take a breath to relax a moment. "And are you happy?"

Those deep red eyes never wavered, gone were the bags under his eyes that displayed all his stress for the world to see. "I will be."

Mayuzumi smiled, satisfied, and kept going with the tattoo.

"I'm gonna hold your lemon creme cupcakes hostage until you're done," Kuroko called out from behind the door.

"You little shit you stay away from my cupcakes!"

The tattoo artist grumbled incoherent curses for the next couple of minutes while Akashi tried his hardest not to laugh.

Finally, twenty minutes later, it was complete.

Mayuzumi cleaned off the tattoo and made sure everything looked right and gave Akashi a mirror to check it.  
"I love it," he said honestly, eyes roaming over his own tattoo.

Mayuzumi smiled at him. "I'm glad you like it."

"Thank you, Chihiro." The soft expression on his face momentarily stunned the artist, but he shook out of his reverie and walked over to the door.

"Alright you asshole, come on over I'm done."

" _Finally_." Kuroko nearly knocked him over in his haste to come into the room, already throwing the bag of cupcakes at Mayuzumi who cursed while fumbling to catch it. He stopped beside Akashi, next to the chair Mayuzumi had sat in during the session, and his eyes took in the tattoo. "Wow."

The tattoo spanned from the right side of Akashi's chest, up towards his shoulder then down his arm a little above his elbow. There was a koi fish, large and black with gray and white details, curving right on Akashi's shoulder, heading for his collarbones. There were flowers, all cherry blossoms, interspersed through the rest of the tattoo, light pink accented with dark pink, others with red. A few cherry blossom petals landed on the koi fish, one at its head, the others on its tail. Connecting the koi fish and the flowers was a black background with white and light blue and dark blue swirls intertwined with the other parts of the tattoo. The black background radiated from the koi fish, covering some of the cherry blossoms in shading and others popping out amongst the black. A cluster of cherry blossoms were right over the right side of Akashi's chest, with just a few straggling around his arm. It was a partial sleeve, because it went all the way around, the koi's tail wrapping behind his arm too.

"It's beautiful," Kuroko finally said, eyes never leaving the fresh tattoo.

By now Himuro had come in and stood alongside Kuroko, nodding and staring at it too. "I didn't expect something like this; it fits you so well."

Akashi looked shy under the attention. He let Chihiro wrap up the tattoo while he talked to Tetsuya and Tatsuya. "I wanted something that symbolized overcoming adversity, and I think the koi fish does that." He paused. "Cherry blossoms were my mom's favorite flower. I thought the contrast would look nice."

"It does," Himuro immediately agreed.

Kuroko got up close and personal with it and his eyes followed every line, every hint of shading, every hint of blended colors. "This is amazing."

"Thanks," Mayuzumi grinned when Kuroko flipped him off.

Kuroko turned his attention back to Akashi. "I honestly thought you were gonna go for something like a phoenix."

Akashi smiled. "That was my second choice, it was going to be on my back."

* * *

The bell to ShadowsX rang, announcing Akashi's arrival late in the day.

"Evening everyone," he said, as the others in the shop waved. Himuro was just about to leave, Kuroko was with a client and Mayuzumi was resting on the couch while texting Kise about a book he really liked that Sakurai had recommended that he thought Kise would like too. Akashi walked to the counter and left a vanilla milkshake on it, smiling when Kuroko perked up on sight of it.

"I leave them in your hands, Akashi." Himuro said as he put on his beanie and scarf, walking to the door. He had a date with Murasakibara tonight.

"Of course." The businessman walked over to the couch after he left. "This seat taken?"

Mayuzumi patted the seat beside him. His eyes zeroed in on the rather large pastry bag in his hands. "What's in the bag?"

"Lemon blueberry donuts, lemon berry cheesecake, lemon meringue pie bits, and lemon tea cookies."

"Are those for me?"

"Yes."

Mayuzumi's mouth watered. "I can't wait to share those."

Red eyes blinked in surprise. "Really?"

"You like lemon pastries too, right?"

"Not to the extent you do."

"I don't think anyone does." He grinned, looking proud of himself. "Of course I wanna share." He was quick to pull out a lemon meringue pie bit and give another to Akashi. He bit into it and moaned. "Thanks Akashi."

Akashi blushed and ate his own piece, enjoying the way it was sweet and sour at the same time in such a small piece.

Mayuzumi picked out a lemon blueberry donut and broke it in half, giving the other to Akashi. "God I really needed this today." He nudged him with his shoulder. The redhead chuckled.

"You could've texted me if you wanted something, I would've gotten it for you."

"Nah, this is perfect." He sighed in content. "How's work been?"

"Great, actually. Both Shintaro and Takao are wonderful at leading their individual departments and that's helped me out a lot. Our stocks keep rising."

"That's awesome, glad that's all working out. I knew you were gonna be ok, but you had me a little worried with all that stress piling up."

"That's sweet of you to worry. I'm doing alright, it's nice not to have blackmail and cheap threats weighing me down. Things are running smoothly now."

"And your dad?"

"I showed him my tattoo. He stared for a long time, quiet, then said," here Akashi cleared his throat and dropped his pitch a little, "Cherry blossoms were your mother's favorite."

Mayuzumi smiled. "Sounds like it went well, then."

"More or less. He has too much free time now, but it looks like retiring from running a company is doing him good." Akashi laid back on the couch, sighing. "He sees that I'm doing well with the company and for the most part I think there's more mutual respect here."

Mayuzumi handed him a lemon tea cookie. "Things are looking up."

Akashi looked at him, a fond expression on his face. "They are."

"Y'know, I think you guys should thank me," Kuroko interrupted, lazily sipping on the milkshake, his client long gone but neither had noticed, too caught up in each other and the pastries. He had an elbow on the counter with his chin in his palm. "I may have messed up a little along the way but I got you two together, right?"

Mayuzumi and Akashi blushed, suddenly remembering they weren't alone; not looking at each other. Kuroko raised a brow. "Wait, aren't you two…?"

Mayuzumi discreetly shook his head at him. They were still caught in the maybe one way maybe another with each other, still trying to find out what worked with them, but they'd been so caught up with other things that they've kind of left it up in the air.

Kuroko hummed, slurping up more of his shake. "Still, you guys should thank me."

Akashi looked shy for once and didn't reply while Mayuzumi huffed.

"I'll shove that vanilla milkshake up your ass, you terrible meddler."

Kuroko's genuine laugh was the first thing the next client heard upon opening the door to ShadowsX.

* * *

A chill breeze ruffled through silver hair as Mayuzumi walked, relishing in the last breath of cold as spring started to come to an end. Thick gray clouds covered up most of the sky, hiding the moon but for a tiny glow in the sky. This is the way he liked the sky best.

He never really did anything on his nightly walks, just walked, just got himself out there, alone with his thoughts, letting his feet guide him wherever they wanted to go before he somehow always managed to get himself back home.

This was one of those nights, where he wasn't doing anything, just thinking, as he walked. He subconsciously played around with his tongue piercing, because that's a habit he recently acquired, and it's something that helped him think too. At least he didn't have work tomorrow.

A nearby set of footsteps alerted him that he wasn't alone at the park right now, closing in on one in the morning.

"Akashi, why is it we always seem to find each other out here?" Mayuzumi asked when he noticed the businessman walking towards him.

The redhead lifted his gaze from the ground, surprise in his features before they settled into a fond look. "I was in the area."

They actually were closer to his place than they were to Mayuzumi's place, but not by much. Funny how that happened.

Akashi looked, well, he looked fine, except he looked stressed again, and sleepy on top of it. He was dressed like he just walked out of work, shivering slightly because the night air was still chilly and he didn't even have a scarf on.

"Are you alone with your thoughts?"

Akashi sighed. "For the most part."

"Mind some company?" Mayuzumi stepped in front of him, catching the attention of those stressed red eyes.

"I'd like that, actually."

Mayuzumi took in a deep breath to fortify himself and reached a hand out to take one of Akashi's. "Then, we can go to my place while you tell me your problems." He looked away from Akashi's startled but curious gaze, yet he felt Akashi squeeze his hand back. Just a little, still shy.

They talked about Akashi's company, how things are going well but running a company especially still so young, was very stressful. Akashi didn't expect his mid twenties to be spent worrying about the fate of his company and everyone who worked with it. They talked about how ShadowsX was doing, with its influx of clients lately, for some reason. They talked about everything and nothing.

And when they were closing in on Mayuzumi's place the sky decided to start drizzling.

Mayuzumi's grip on Akashi's hand tightened as they started running, laughing. Akashi brought his hand up to try and cover his head from the rain as it started to come down a little harder, and they considered getting a cab before figuring they could just keep running and get there quicker.

Akashi slipped at one point but thankfully Mayuzumi's grip was strong enough to keep him steady. In the cold night that hand was warm.

When they reached his home, Mayuzumi dropped his keys once before, "Is it too much to assume that you'll be spending the night?" Mayuzumi asked, keys in his hand, paused in unlocking the door.

Akashi laughed. "I could always just call a cab home."

"No no no no," Mayuzumi opened the door and let him before closing it behind them. "Not in this weather. You look like you need a good night's rest." The heater was on and thankfully the place was warm without being overly hot. The contrast of coming from the cold, rainy night air into a warm home felt incredible.

"There's only a couple hours left of the night," Akashi pointed out.

"So? You're not working tomorrow right? Sleep in." Mayuzumi immediately went to his room to bring out some towels and a spare change of clothes for Akashi.

"You're right."

They both took a quick shower and ended up in Mayuzumi's room, as it was closer to two in the morning and his room was the only one with a bed.

Akashi wore nothing but a pair of sweatpants that were a little long on him, but they were comfy. He was using a towel to finish drying his hair when he noticed the other walk towards him.

Slate gray eyes were focused on the now healed tattoo, taking in every detail that permanently etched itself onto Akashi's skin. He reached out to touched it softly and he felt Akashi startle briefly. He turned to fully face him.

"Chihiro?"

"You let me permanently draw on you."

"And it turned out beautiful."

Chihiro blushed a little, pulling his gaze away from the tattoo. He wore a tanktop that mostly covered up his tattoos but Akashi couldn't help but be drawn to the ones he could see. A mirror on the wall behind him showed hints of the tree tattoo that spanned Chihiro's back.

They stood close right now, hardly a foot between them. Akashi shifted slightly and Chihiro's attention snapped back to him, eyes meeting a steady red gaze.

They stood there, with the rain hitting the window to create an ambient background. Neither moved for a heartbeat, two, three.

There was tension, hesitation, excitement.

"May I?" Akashi asked, taking half a step forward so they were even closer, just a breath between them.

Chihiro nodded and that was the greenlight for Akashi to lean forward and kiss him, gently, softly, feeling Chihiro freeze for a moment before shyly kissing back, just barely enough of a press against his lips.

Akashi reached a hand up and cupped Chihiro's cheek, hoping to ease him into the kiss a little more. Eventually Chihiro's hands found themselves on Akashi's hips, Chihiro's cold hands contrasting with Akashi's warm skin that a tiny shiver went up Akashi's spine, moving him just a little closer, pressing up against the other's chest.

Their kisses became deeper but stayed gentle; they were testing this out, slowly letting out all their pent up feelings and knew they were going to have plenty of time later on to discover more of each other. Without even talking, they knew.

Akashi found out he really, really liked Chihiro's tongue piercing, too.

They gradually pulled apart, lingering on each other, Chihiro the last to pull away. He sighed, bringing their foreheads together. "Can we take things slow?"

God, how much slower did he want? They'd known each other almost a year now, been tap dancing around each other for a few months, barely talking out their feelings and after all this, all they do is kiss.

The hand that Akashi had on Chihiro's cheek caressed him. "We can take things as slow as you want."

Despite all their mistakes getting here, this was working out just fine. Akashi was perfect. He had his own flaws, Akashi had his, but here, there was something between them, a chance at being happy.

Chihiro leaned into the touch before taking hold of the hand and kissing the palm. "Can I hold you tonight?"

A faint red dusted Akashi's cheeks as he nodded.

They settled in the bed, Chihiro pulling the blanket over them as Akashi settled on his left side with Chihiro right behind him, his chest pressed to Akashi's back, his arms around Akashi's waist.

"Is this ok?"

"It's perfect."

Chihiro kissed the area just outside Akashi's tattoo on his neck, eliciting a soft sigh from him.

Akashi squeezed Chihiro's hands. "You know, I'd like to get another tattoo in the future someday, would you be willing to draw it?"

Chihiro couldn't help but kiss the back of Akashi's neck. "I'll draw anything for you." He paused. "Does this mean we're dating because I'll never hear the end of it from Kuroko."

Akashi laughed, a genuine, happy laugh. He looked back just enough to give Chihiro a quick kiss, then settled back on the pillow.

With the rain lulling them, they fell asleep moments later, both exhausted but completely satisfied with how the day ended, with what their night walks led them to.

It was an unexpected outcome, from first stepping into ShadowsX nearly a year ago, curiously just wanting to see the place and maybe consider a tattoo someday, but then all this happened. Akashi had a tattoo, was the head of his own company, and was lucky enough to fall asleep in the arms of the guy he'd fallen for almost on sight.

It was an unexpected outcome, but definitely the best one.

* * *

Thank you so much to everyone who read my story! It took a long time but here we are at the end! I hope you enjoyed it!


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